'ik^ 


is  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


Sim  NORMAL  Surtaui, 

Los  AnHes  Cal. 


A  genial  exponent  of  the  best  sort  of  American  thought. — 
London  Examiner. 

» 

MY  SUMMER  IN  A  GARDEN.  New  Edition,  txAzrgtA.    i6mo  $i.o 

Popular  Illustrated  Edition.     Square  i6mo i.S 

SA  UNTERINGS.     "  Little  Classic  "  style.     i8mo 1.2 

BACK-LOG  STUDIES.     Illustrated  by  Hoppin.     Square  i6mo  i.f 
BADDECK,  AND  THA  T  SOR  T  OF  THING.    "  Little  Clas- 
sic ''  style.     i8mo i.t 

MV   WINTER   ON   THE  NILE.    New  Edition.     Crown  8vo  2.c 

IN  THE  LEVANT.     Crown  Svo 2.c 

BEING  A   BOV.     Illustrated  by  "  Champ."    Square  i6mo i.. 

IN  THE   WILDERNESS.     "  Little  Classic '' style.     iSmo •, 

WASHINGTON   IRVING.     In   "American  Men  of  Letters" 

Series.    With  Portrait.      i6mo i .: 

A    ROUNDABOUT  JOURNEY.     Crown  Svo i.; 


•  He  has  all  the  wit  of  Holmes,  and  all  the  tenderness  of  Ik  Marv< 
He  is  often  charmingly  thoughtful,  earnest,  and  suggestive.  —  San  Era. 
Cisco  Bulletin. 

Rich  humor  pervades  both  thought  and  style.     In  this  quality  he  ran! 
far  above  every  other  American  writer.  —  T/ie  Churchtnan  (New  York). 


*#*  For  sale  by  all  Booksellers.    Sent,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  price  , 
the  Publishers^ 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY,   Boston,  Mass. 


3addeck^  and  that  Sort  of 
Thing. 


BY 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 

«0R   OF   "  MV   SUMMER   IN   A   GARDEN,"    "  BACKLOG  STUDIES, 
"  SAUNTERINGS,"  ETC. 


Tenth  Edition. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street. 

STfje  BiJjerstUe  ^ress,  CTamtiritjge. 


\    V: 


vl-      \    ^  J 


4 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874, 

BY  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER, 

in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


OAXBRIDGS  :  FBINTED  AT  THE  BIVSSSIDS  PBBSSl 


stack 
^  Annex 


F 

I0S7 


9^0  ntg  Comrabe 
JOSEPH    H.    TWICHELL 

SUMMER  AND  WINTER  FRIEND 


COMPANIONSHIP    WOULD    MAKE    ANY    JOURNEY 
A   DELIGHTFUL  MEMORY 


THESE  NOTES  OF  A  SUNNY  FORTNIGHT 
IN   THE    PROVINCES 


ARE  INSCRIBED. 


BADDECK,  AND  THAT  SORT  OF  THING. 


I. 


"  Ay,  now  I  am  in  Arden  :  the  more  fool  I ;  when  I  was  at 
home,  I  was  in  a  better  place;  but  travellers  must  be  con- 
tent." —  Touchstone. 


WO  comrades  and  travellers,  who  sought 
a  better  country  than  the  United  States 
in  the  month  of  August,  found  themselves 
one  evening  in  apparent  possession  of  the  ancient 
town  of  Boston. 

The  shops  were  closed  at  early  candle-light ;  the 
fashionable  inhabitants  had  retired  into  the  coun- 
try, or  into  the  second-story-back  of  their  princely 
residences,  and  even  an  air  of  tender  gloom  set- 
tled upon  the  Common.  The  streets  were  almost 
empty,   and  one  passed  into  the  burnt  district. 


8  BADDECK, 


where  the  scarred  ruins  and  the  uplifting  piles  of 
new  brick  and  stone  spread  abroad  under  the 
flooding  light  of  a  full  moon  like  another  Pompeii, 
without  any  increase  in  his  feeling  of  tranquil 
seclusion.  Even  the  news-offices  had  put  up  their 
shutters,  and  a  confiding  stranger  could  nowhere 
buy  a  guide-book  to  help  his  wandering  feet  about 
the  reposeful  city,  or  to  show  him  how  to  get  out 
of  it.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  cheerful  tinkle  of 
horse-car  bells  in  the  air,  and  in  the  creeping 
vehicles  which  created  this  levity  of  sound  were 
a  few  lonesome  passengers  on  their  way  to  Scol- 
lay's  Square ;  but  the  two  travellers,  not  having 
well-regulated  minds,  had  no  desire  to  go  there. 
What  would  have  become  of  Boston  if  the  great 
fire  had  reached  this  sacred  point  of  pilgrimage 
no  merely  human  mind  can  imagine.  Without 
it,  I  suppose  the  horse-cars  would  go  continually 
round  and  round,  never  stopping,  until  the  cars 
fell  away  piecemeal  on  the  track,  and  the  horses 
collapsed  into  a  mere  mass  of  bones  and  harness, 
and  the  brown-covered  books  from  the  Public  Li- 
brary,  in  the  hands   of  the  fading  virgins  who 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING. 


carried  them,  had  accumulated  fines  to  an  incal- 
culable amount. 

Boston,  notwithstanding  its  partial  destruction 
by  fire,  is  still  a  good  place  to  start  from.  When 
one  meditates  an  excursion  into  an  unknown  and 
perhaps  perilous  land,  where  the  flag  will  not  pro- 
tect him  and  the  greenback  will  only  partially 
support  him,  he  likes  to  steady  and  tranquillize 
his  mind  by  a  peaceful  halt  and  a  serene  start. 
So  we  —  for  the  intelligent  reader  has  already 
identified  us  with  the  two  travellers  —  resolved  to 
spend  the  last  night,  before  beginning  our  jour- 
ney, in  the  quiet  of  a  Boston  hotel.  Some  people 
go  into  the  country  for  quiet :  we  knew  better. 
The  country  is  no  place  for  sleep.  The  general 
absence  of  sound  which  prevails  at  night  is  only  a 
sort  of  background  which  brings  out  more  vividly 
the  special  and  unexpected  disturbances  which  are 
suddenly  sprung  upon  the  restless  listener.  There 
are  a  thousand  pokerish  noises  that  no  one  can 
account  for,  which  excite  the  nerves  to  acute 
watchfulness.  It  is  still  early,  and  one  is  begin- 
ning to  be  lulled  by  the  frogs  and  the  crickets, 
1* 


10  BADDECK, 


when  the  faint  rattle  of  a  drum  is  heard,  — just 
a  few  prehminary  taps.  But  the  soul  takes  alarm, 
and  well  it  may,  for  a  roll  follows,  and  then  a  rub- 
a-dub-dub,  and  the  farmer's  boy  who  is  handling 
the  sticks  and  pounding  the  distended  skin  in  a 
neighboring  horse-shed  begins  to  pour  out  his 
patriotism  in  that  unending  repetition  of  rub-a- 
dub-dub  which  is  supposed  to  represent  love  of 
country  in  the  young.  When  the  boy  is  tired 
out  and  quits  the  field,  the  faithful  watch-dog 
opens  out  upon  the  stilly  night.  He  is  the 
guardian  of  his  master's  slumbers.  The  howls  of 
the  faithful  creature  are  answered  by  barks  and 
yelps  from  all  the  farm-houses  for  a  mile  around, 
and  exceedingly  poor  barking  it  usually  is,  until 
all  the  serenity  of  the  night  is  torn  to  shreds. 
This  is,  however,  only  the  opening  of  the  orches- 
tra. The  cocks  wake  up  if  there  is  the  faint- 
est moonshine  and  begin  an  antiphonal  service 
between  responsive  barn-yards.  It  is  not  the 
clear  clarion  of  chanticleer  that  is  heard  in  the 
mom  of  English  poetry,  but  a  harsh  chorus  of 
cracked  voices,   hoarse    and    abortive    attempts, 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  11 

squawks  of  young  experimenters,  and  some  inde- 
scribable thing  besides,  for  I  believe  even  the  hens 
crow  in  these  days.  Distracting  as  all  this  is, 
however,  happy  is  the  man  who  does  not  hear  a 
goat  lamenting  in  the  night.  The  goat  is  the 
most  exasperating  of  the  animal  creation.  He 
cries  like  a  deserted  baby,  but  he  does  it  with- 
out any  regularity.  One  can  accustom  himself 
to  any  expression  of  suffering  that  is  regular. 
The  annoyance  of  the  goat  is  in  the  dreadful  wait- 
ing for  the  uncertain  sound  of  the  next  wavering 
bleat.  It  is  the  fearful  expectation  of  that,  min- 
gled with  the  faint  hope  that  the  last  was  the  last, 
that  aggravates  the  tossing  listener  until  he  has 
murder  in  his  heart.  He  longs  for  daylight,  hop- 
ing that  the  voices  of  the  night  will  then  cease, 
and  that  sleep  will  come  with  the  blessed  morning. 
But  he  has  forgotten  the  birds,  who  at  the  first 
streak  of  gray  in  the  east  have  assembled  in  the 
trees  near  his  chamber-window,  and  keep  up  for 
an  hour  the  most  rasping  dissonance,  —  an  orches- 
tra in  which  each  artist  is  tuning  his  instrument, 
Betting  it  in  a  different  key  and  to  play  a  different 


12  BAD  DECK, 


tune  :  each  bird  recalls  a  different  tune,  and  none 
sings  Annie  Laurie,  —  to  pervert  Bayard  Taylor's 
song. 

Give  us  the  quiet  of  a  city  on  the  night  before 
a  journey.  As  we  mounted  skyward  in  our  hotel, 
and  went  to  bed  in  a  serene  altitude,  we  congratu- 
lated ourselves  ujjon  a  reposeful  night.  It  began 
well.  But  as  we  sank  into  the  first  doze,  we  were 
startled  by  a  sudden  crash.  Was  it  an  earth- 
quake, or  another  fire  1  Were  the  neighboring 
buildings  all  tumbling  in  upon  us,  or  had  a  bomb 
fallen  into  the  neighboring  crockery-stored  It 
was  the  suddenness  of  the  onset  that  startled  us, 
for  we  soon  perceived  that  it  began  with  the  clash 
of  cymbals,  the  pounding  of  drums,  and  the  blar- 
ing of  dreadful  brass.  It  was  somebody's  idea  of 
music.  It  opened  without  warning.  The  men 
composing  the  band  of  brass  must  have  stolen 
silently  into  the  alley  about  the  sleeping  hotel, 
and  burst  into  the  clamor  of  a  rattling  quickstep, 
on  purpose.  The  horrible  sound  thus  suddenly 
let  loose  had  no  chance  of  escape;  it  bounded 
back  from  wall  to  wall,  like  the  clapping  of  boards 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  13 

in  a  tunnel,  rattling  windows  and  stunning  all  ears, 
in  a  vain  attempt  to  get  out  over  the  roofs.  But 
such  music  does  not  go  up.  What  could  have 
been  the  intention  of  this  assault  we  could  not 
conjecture.  It  was  a  time  of  profound  peace 
through  the  country;  we  had  ordered  no  spon- 
taneous serenade,  if  it  was  a  serenade.  Perhaps 
the  Boston  bands  have  that  habit  of  going  into  an 
alley  and  disciplining  their  nerves  by  letting  out 
a  tune  too  big  for  the  alley,  and  taking  the  shock 
of  its  reverberation.  It  may  be  well  enough  for 
the  band,  but  many  a  poor  sinner  in  the  hotel  that 
night  must  have  thought  the  judgment  day  had 
sprung  upon  him.  Perhaps  the  band  had  some 
remoFse,  for  by  and  by  it  leaked  out  of  the  alley, 
in  humble,  apologetic  retreat,  as  if  somebody  had 
thrown  something  at  it  from  the  sixth-story  win- 
dow, softly  breathing  as  it  retired  the  notes  of 
Fair  Harvard. 

The  band  had  scarcely  departed  for  some  other 
haunt  of  slumber  and  weariness,  when  the  notes  of 
singing  floated  up  that  prolific  alley,  like  the  sweet 
tenor  voice  of  one  bewailing  the  prohibitory  move- 


14  BADDECK, 


ment;  and  for  an  hour  or  more  a  succession  of 
young  bacchanals,  who  were  evidently  wandering 
about  in  search  of  the  Maine  Law,  lifted  up  their 
voices  in  song.  Boston  seems  to  be  full  of  good 
singers;  but  they  will  ruin  their  voices  by  this 
night  exercise,  and  so  the  city  will  cease  to  be  at- 
tractive to  travellers  who  would  like  to  sleep  there. 
But  this  entertainment  did  not  last  the  night  out. 
It  stopped  just  before  the  hotel  porter  began  to 
come  around  to  rouse  the  travellers  who  had  said 
the  night  before  that  they  wanted  to  be  awakened. 
In  all  well-regulated  hotels  this  process  begins  at 
two  o'clock  and  keeps  up  till  seven.  If  the  porter 
is  at  all  faithful,  he  wakes  up  everybody  in  the 
house ;  if  he  is  a  shirk,  he  only  rouses  the  Wrong 
people.  We  treated  the  pounding  of  the  porter 
on  our  door  with  silent  contempt.  At  the  next 
door  he  had  better  luck.  Pound,  pound.  An 
angry  voice,  "What  do  you  want^" 

"  Time  to  take  the  train,  sir." 

"  Not  going  to  take  any  train." 

*'  Ain't  your  name  Smith  ]  '* 

"Yes." 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  15 

"Well,  Smith— " 

"I  left  no  order  to  be  called."  (Indistinct 
grumbling  from  Smith's  room.) 

Porter  is  heard  shuffling  slowly  off  down  the 
passage.  In  a  little  while  he  returns  to  Smith's 
door,  evidently  not  satisfied  in  his  mind.  Rap, 
rap,  rap  ! 

"Well,  what  now r' 

" What's  your  initials r' 

"A.  T. ;  clear  out!" 

And  the  porter  shambles  away  again  in  his 
slippers,  grumbling  something  about  a  mistake. 
The  idea  of  waking  a  man  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  to  ask  him  his  "initials"  was  ridiculous 
enough  to  banish  sleep  for  another  hour.  A 
person  named  Smith,  when  he  travels,  should 
leave  his  initials  outside  the  door  with  his  boots. 

Refreshed  by  this  reposeful  night,  and  eager  to 
exchange  the  stagnation  of  the  shore  for  the 
tumult  of  the  ocean,  we  departed  next  morning  for 
Baddeck  by  the  most  direct  route.  This  we 
found,  by  diligent  study  of  fascinating  prospec- 
tuses of  travel,  to  be  by  the  boats  of  the  Inter- 


16  BADDECK, 


national  Steamship  Company ;  and  when,  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  we  stepped  aboard  one  of 
them  from  Commercial  Wharf,  we  felt  that  half 
our  journey  and  the  most  perplexing  part  of  it 
was  accomplished.  We  had  put  ourselves  upon 
a  great  line  of  travel,  and  had  only  to  resign  our- 
selves to  its  flow  in  order  to  reach  the  desired 
haven.  The  agent  at  the  wharf  assured  us  that 
it  was  not  necessary  to  buy  through  tickets  to 
Baddeck,  —  he  spoke  of  it  as  if  it  were  as  easy  a 
place  to  find  as  Swampscott,  —  it  was  a  conspicu- 
ous name  on  the  cards  of  the  company,  we  should 
go  right  on  from  St.  John  without  difficulty.  The 
easy  familiarity  of  this  official  with  Baddeck,  in 
short,  made  us  ashamed  to  exhibit  any  anxiety 
about  its  situation  or  the  means  of  approach  to  it. 
Subsequent  experience  led  us  to  believe  that  the 
only  man  in  the  world,  out  of  Baddeck,  who  knew 
anything  about  it  lives  in  Boston,  and  sells  tickets 
to  it,  or  rather  towards  it. 

There  is  no  moment  of  delight  in  any  pilgrimage 
like  the  beginning  of  it,  when  the  traveller  is 
settled  simply  as  to  his  destination,  and  commits 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  17 

himself  to  his  unknown  fate  and  all  the  anticipa- 
tions of  adventure  before  him.  We  experienced 
this  pleasure  as  we  ascended  to  the  deck  of  the 
steamboat  and  snuffed  the  fresh  air  of  Boston 
Harbor.  What  a  beautiful  harbor  it  is,  everybody 
says,  with  its  irregularly  indented  shores  and  its 
islands.  Being  strangers,  we  want  to  know  the 
names  of  the  islands,  and  to  have  Fort  Warren, 
which  has  a  national  reputation,  pointed  out.  As 
usual  on  a  steamboat,  no  one  is  certain  about  the 
names,  and  the  little  geographical  knowledge  we 
have  is  soon  hopelessly  confused.  We  make  out 
South  Boston  very  plainly  :  a  tourist  is  looking 
at  its  warehouses  through  his  opera-glass,  and 
telling  his  boy  about  a  recent  fire  there.  We 
find  out  afterwards  that  it  was  East  Boston.  We 
pass  to  the  stem  of  the  boat  for  a  last  look  at 
Boston  itself;  and  while  there  we  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  showing  inquirers  the  Monument  and  the 
State  House.  We  do  this  with  easy  familiarity ; 
but  where  there  are  so  many  tall  factory  chimneys, 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  point  out  the  Monument  as 
one  may  think. 

B 


18  BADDECK, 


The  day  is  simply  delicious,  when  we  get  away 
from  the  imozoned  air  of  the  land.  The  sky  is 
cloudless,  and  the  water  sparkles  like  the  top  of 
a  glass  of  champagne.  We  intend  by  and  by  to 
sit  down  and  look  at  it  for  half  a  day,  basking 
in  the  sunshine  and  pleasing  ourselves  with  the 
shifting  and  dancing  of  the  waves.  Now  we  are 
busy  running  about  from  side  to  side  to  see  the 
islands,  Governor's,  Castle,  Long,  Deer,  and  the 
others.  When,  at  length,  we  find  Fort  Warren, 
it  is  not  nearly  so  grim  and  gloomy  as  we  had 
expected,  and  is  rather  a  pleasure-place  than  a 
prison  in  appearance.  We  are  conscious,  however, 
of  a  patriotic  emotion  as  we  pass  its  gi'een  turf 
and  peeping  guns.  Leaving  on  our  right  Lo veil's 
Island  and  the  Great  and  Outer  Brewster,  we 
stand  away  north  along  the  jagged  Massachusetts 
shore.  These  outer  islands  look  cold  and  wind- 
swept even  in  summer,  and  have  a  hardness  of 
outline  which  is  very  far  from  the  aspect  of  sum- 
mer isles  in  summer  seas.  They  are  too  low  and 
bare  for  beauty,  and  all  the  coast  is  of  the  most 
retiring  and  humble  description.     Nature  makes 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  19 

some  compensation  for  this  lowness  by  an  eccen- 
tricity of  indentation  which  looks  very  picturesque 
on  the  map,  and  sometimes  striking,  as  where 
Lynn  stretches  out  a  slender  arm  with  knobby 
Nahant  at  the  end,  like  a  New  Zealand  war-club. 
We  sit  and  watch  this  shore  as  we  glide  by  with 
a  placid  delight.  Its  curves  and  low  promon- 
tories are  getting  to  be  speckled  with  villages  and 
dwellings,  like  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Naples ; 
we .  see  the  white  spires,  the  summer  cottages  of 
wealth,  the  brown  farm-houses  with  an  occasional 
orchard,  the  gleam  of  a  white  beach,  and  now 
and  then  the  flag  of  some  many-piazzaed  hotel. 
The  sunlight  is  the  glory  of  it  all ;  it  must  have 
quite  another  attraction  —  that  of  melancholy  — 
under  a  gray  sky  and  with  a  lead-colored  water 
foreground. 

There  is  not  much  on  the  steamboat  to  distract 
our  attention  from  the  study  of  physical  geography. 
All  the  fashionable  travellers  had  gone  on  the  pre- 
vious boat  or  were  waiting  for  the  next  one.  The 
passengers  were  mostly  people  who  belonged  in  the 
Provinces  and  had  the  listless  provincial  air,  with 


20  BADDECK, 


a  Boston  commercial  traveller  or  two,  and  a  few- 
gentlemen  from  the  republic  of  Ireland,  dressed  in 
their  micomfortable  Sunday  clothes.  If  any  acci- 
dent should  happen  to  the  boat,  it  was  doubtful  if 
there  were  persons  on  board  who  could  draw  up 
and  pass  the  proper  resolutions  of  thanks  to  the 
officers.  I  heard  one  of  these  Irish  gentlemen, 
whose  satin  vest  was  insufficient  to  repress  the 
mountainous  protuberance  of  his  shirt-bosom,  en- 
lightening an  admiring  friend  as  to  his  idiosyncra- 
sies. It  appeared  that  he  was  that  sort  of  a  man 
that,  if  a  man  wanted  anything  of  him,  he  had  only 
to  speak  for  it  "  wunst  "  ;  and  that  one  of  his  pe- 
culiarities was  an  instant  response  of  the  deltoid 
muscle  to  the  brain,  though  he  did  not  express  it 
in  that  language.  He  went  on  to  explain  to  his 
auditor  that  he  was  so  constituted  physically  that 
whenever  he  saw  a  fight,  no  matter  whose  property 
it  was,  he  lost  all  control  of  himself.  This  sort 
of  confidence  poured  out  to  a  single  friend,  in  a  re- 
tired place  on  the  guard  of  the  boat,  in  an  unexcit- 
ed  tone,  was  evidence  of  the  man's  simplicity  and 
sincerity.     The  very  act  of  travelHng,  I  have  no- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  21 

ticed,  seems  to  open  a  man's  heart,  so  that  he  will 
impart  to  a  chance  acquaintance  his  losses,  his  dis- 
eases, his  table  preferences,  his  disappointments 
in  love  or  in  politics,  and  his  most  secret  hopes. 
One  sees  everywhere  this  beautiful  human  trait, 
this  craving  for  sympathy.  There  was  the  old  lady, 
in  the  antique  bonnet  and  plain  cotton  gloves,  who 
got  aboard  the  express  train  at  a  way-station  on 
the  Connecticut  River  Road.  She  wanted  to  go, 
let  us  say,  to  Peak's  Four  Corners.  It  seemed  that 
the  train  did  not  usually  stop  there,  but  it  appeared 
afterwards  that  the  obliging  conductor  had  told  her 
to  get  aboard  and  he  would  let  her  off  at  Peak's. 
When  she  stepped  into  the  car,  in  a  flustered  con- 
dition, carrying  her  large  bandbox,  she  began  to 
ask  all  the  passengers,  in  turn,  if  this  was  the 
right  train,  and  if  it  stopped  at  Peak's.  The  infor- 
mation she  received  was  various,  but  the  weight 
of  it  was  discouraging,  and  some  of  the  passengers 
urged  her  to  get  off  without  delay,  before  the  train 
should  start.  The  poor  woman  got  off,  and  pretty 
soon  came  back  again,  sent  by  the  conductor ;  but 
her   mind  was  not  settled,  for  she  repeated   her 


22  BADDECK, 


questions  to  every  person  who  passed  her  seat, 
and  their  answers  still  more  discomposed  her. 
"  Sit  perfectly  still,"  said  the  conductor,  when  he 
came  by.  "  You  must  get  out  and  wait  for  a  way 
train,"  said  the  passengers,  who  knew.  In  this 
confusion,  the  train  moved  off,  just  as  the  old  lady 
had  about  made  up  her  mind  to  quit  the  car,  when 
her  distraction  was  completed  by  the  discovery 
that  her  hair  trunk  was  not  on  board.  She  saw  it 
standing  on  the  open  platform,  as  we  passed,  and 
after  one  look  of  terror,  and  a  dash  at  the  window, 
she  subsided  into  her  seat,  grasping  her  bandbox, 
with  a  vacant  look  of  utter  despair.  Fate  now 
seemed  to  have  done  its  worst,  and  she  was  re- 
signed to  it.  I  am  sure  it  was  no  mere  curiosity, 
but  a  desire  to  be  of  service,  that  led  me  to  approach 
her  and  say,  "Madam,  where  are  you  goingi" 

"  The  Lord  only  knows,"  was  the  utterly  candid 
response ;  but  then,  forgetting  everything  in  her 
last  misfortune  and  impelled  to  a  burst  of  con- 
fidence, she  began  to  tell  me  her  troubles.  She 
informed  me  that  her  youngest  daughter  was 
about  to  be  married,  and  that  all  her  wedding- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  23 

clothes  and  all  her  summer  clothes  were  in  that 
trunk ;  and  as  she  said  this  she  gave  a  glance  out 
of  the  window  as  if  she  hoped  it  might  be  follow- 
ing her.  What  would  become  of  them  all  now, 
all  brand  new,  she  did  n't  know,  nor  what  would 
become  of  her  or  her  daughter.  And  then  she  told 
me,  article  by  article  and  piece  by  piece,  all  that 
that  trunk  contained,  the  very  names  of  which  had 
an  unfamiliar  sound  in  a  railway-car,  and  how 
many  sets  and  pairs  there  were  of  each.  It  seemed 
to  be  a  relief  to  the  old  lady  to  make  public  this 
catalogue  which  filled  all  her  mind ;  and  there  was 
a  pathos  in  the  revelation  that  I  cannot  convey  in 
words.  And  though  I  am  compelled,  by  way  of 
illustration,  to  give  this  incident,  no  bribery  or 
torture  shall  ever  extract  from  me  a  statement  of 
the  contents  of  that  hair  trunk. 

We  were  now  passing  Nahant,  and  we  should 
have  seen  Longfellow's  cottage  and  the  waves  beat- 
ing on  the  rocks  before  it,  if  we  had  been  near 
enough.  As  it  was,  we  could  only  faintly  dis- 
tinguish the  headland  and  note  the  white  beach 
of  Lynn.     The  fact  is,  that  in  travel  one  is  almost 


24  BADDECK, 


as  much  dependent  upon  imagination  and  memory 
as  he  is  at  home.  Somehow,  we  seldom  get  near 
enough  to  anj^thing.  The  interest  of  all  this  coast 
which  we  had  come  to  inspect  was  mainly  literary 
and  historical.  And  no  country  is  of  much  inter- 
est until  legends  and  poetry  have  draped  it  in  hues 
that  mere  nature  cannot  produce.  We  looked  at 
Nahant  for  Longfellow's  sake;  we  strained  our 
eyes  to  make  out  Marblehead  on  account  of  Whit- 
tier's  ballad ;  we  scrutinized  the  entrance  to  Salem 
Harbor  because  a  genius  once  sat  in  its  decaying 
custom-house  and  made  of  it  a  throne  of  the  im- 
agination. Upon  this  low  shore  line,  which  lies 
blinking  in  the  midday  sun,  the  waves  of  history 
have  beaten  for  two  centuries  and  a  half,  and 
romance  has  had  time  to  grow  there.  Out  of  any 
of  these  coves  might  have  sailed  Sir  Patrick  Spens 
"  to  Noroway,  to  Noroway,"  — 

"  They  hadna  sailed  tipoii  the  sea 
A  day  but  barely  three, 
Till  loud  and  boisterous  grew  the  wind, 
And  gurly  grew  the  sea." 

The  sea  was  anything  but  gurly  now ;  it  lay  idle 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  25 

and  shining  in  an  August  holiday.  It  seemed  as 
if  we  could  sit  all  day  and  watch  the  suggestive 
shore  and  dream  about  it.  But  we  could  not. 
No  man,  and  few  women,  can  sit  all  day  on  those 
little  round  penitential  stools  that  the  company 
provide  for  the  discomfort  of  their  passengers. 
There  is  no  scenery  in  the  world  that  can  be  en- 
joyed from  one  of  those  stools.  And  when  the 
traveller  is  at  sea,  with  the  land  falling  away  in 
his  horizon,  and  has  to  create  his  own  scenery  by 
an  effort  of  the  imagination,  these  stools  are  no 
assistance  to  him.  The  imagination,  when  one  is 
sitting,  will  not  work  unless  the  back  is  supported. 
Besides,  it  began  to  be  cold ;  notwithstanding 
the  shiny,  specious  appearance  of  things,  it  was 
cold,  except  in  a  sheltered  nook  or  two  where  the 
sun  beat.  This  was  nothing  to  be  complained  of 
by  persons  who  had  left  the  parching  land  in  order 
to  get  cool.  They  knew  that  there  would  be  a 
wind  and  a  draught  everywhere,  and  that  they 
would  be  occupied  nearly  all  the  time  in  moving 
the  little  stools  about  to  get  out  of  the  wind,  or 
out  of  the  Sim,  or  out  of  something  that  is  inherent 


26  BADDECK, 


in  a  steamboat.  Most  people  enjoy  riding  on  a 
steamboat,  shaking  and  trembling  and  chow-chow- 
ing  along  in  pleasant  weather  out  of  sight  of  land  ; 
and  they  do  not  feel  any  ennui,  as  may  be  inferred 
from  the  intense  excitement  which  seizes  them 
when  a  poor  porpoise  leaps  from  the  water  half  a 
mile  away.  "Did  you  see  the  porpoise  ?"  makes 
conversation  for  an  hour.  On  our  steamboat  there 
was  a  man  who  said  he  saw  a  whale,  saw  him  just 
as  plain,  off  to  the  east,  come  up  to  blow ;  appeared 
to  be  a  young  one.  I  wonder  where  all  these  men 
come  from  who  always  see  a  whale.  I  never  was 
on  a  sea-steamer  yet  that  there  was  not  one  of 
these  men. 

We  sailed  from  Boston  Harbor  straight  for  Cape 
Ann,  and  passed  close  by  the  twin  lighthouses  of 
Thacher,  so  near  that  we  could  see  the  lanterns 
and  the  stone  gardens,  and  the  young  barbarians 
of  Thacher  all  at  play;  and  then  we  bore  away, 
straight  over  the  trackless  Atlantic,  across  that 
part  of  the  map  where  the  title  and  the  publisher's 
name  are  usually  printed,  for  the  foreign  city  of 
St.  John.     It  was  after  we  passed  these  lighthouser 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  27 

that  we  did  n't  see  the  whale,  and  began  to  regret 
the  hard  fate  that  took  us  away  from  a  view  of  the 
Isles  of  Shoals.  I  am  not  tempted  to  introduce 
them  into  this  sketch,  much  as  its  surface  needs 
their  romantic  color,  for  truth  is  stronger  in  me 
than  the  love  of  giving  a  deceitful  pleasure.  There 
will  be  nothing  in  this  record  that  we  did  not  see, 
or  might  not  have  seen.  For  instance,  it  might 
not  be  wrong  to  describe  a  coast,  a  town,  or  an 
island  that  we  passed  while  we  were  performing 
our  morning  toilets  in  our  state-rooms.  The  trav- 
eller owes  a  duty  to  his  readers,  and  if  he  is  now 
and  then  too  weary  or  too  indifferent  to  go  out 
from  the  cabin  to  survey  a  prosperous  village  where 
a  landing  is  made,  he  has  no  right  to  cause  the 
reader  to  suffer  by  his  indolence.  He  should  de- 
scribe the  village. 

I  had  intended  to  describe  the  Maine  coast, 
which  is  as  fascinating  on  the  map  as  that  of 
Norway.  We  had  all  the  feelings  appropriate  to 
nearness  to  it,  but  we  could  n't  see  it.  Before  we 
came  abreast  of  it  night  had  settled  down,  and 
there  was  around  us  only  a  gray  and  melancholy 


28  BADDECK, 


waste  of  salt  water.     To  be  sure  it  was  a  lovely 

Jiight,  with  a  young  moon  in  its  sky,  — 

"  I  saw  the  new  moon  late  yestreen 
Wi'  the  auld  moon  in  her  arms,"  — 

and  we  kept  an  anxious  lookout  for  the  Maine 
hills  that  push  so  boldly  down  into  the  sea.  At 
length  we  saw  them,  —  faint,  dusky  shadows  in 
the  horizon,  looming  up  in  an  ashy  color  and 
with  a  most  poetical  light.  We  made  out  clearly 
Mt.  Desert,  and  felt  repaid  for  our  journey  by 
the  sight  of  this  famous  island,  even  at  such  a  dis- 
tance. I  pointed  out  the  hills  to  the  man  at  the 
wheel,  and  asked  if  we  should  go  any  nearer  to 
Mt.  Desert. 

"  Them  ! "  said  he,  with  the  merited  contempt 
which  officials  in  this  country  have  for  inquisitive 
travellers,  —  "  them  's  Camden  Hills.  You  won't 
see  Mt.  Desert  till  midnight,  and  then  you 
won't." 

One  always  likes  to  weave  in  a  little  romance 
with  summer  travel  on  a  steamboat ;  and  we 
came  aboard  this  one  with  the  purpose  and  the 
language  to  do  so.     But   there  was  an  absolute 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  29 

want  of  material,  that  would  hardly  be  credited 
if  we  went  into  details.  The  first  meeting  of  the 
passengers  at  the  dinner-table  revealed  it.  There 
is  a  kind  of  female  plainness  which  is  pathetic, 
and  many  persons  can  truly  say  that  to  them  it 
is  homelike ;  and  there  are  vulgarities  of  manner 
that  are  interesting ;  and  there  are  peculiarities, 
pleasant  or  the  reverse,  which  attract  one's  atten- 
tion :  but  there  was  absolutely  nothing  of  this 
sort  on  our  boat.  The  female  passengers  were 
all  neutrals,  incapable,  I  should  say,  of  making 
any  impression  whatever  even  under  the  most  fa- 
vorable circumstances.  They  were  probably  women 
of  the  Provinces,  and  took  their  neutral  tint  from 
the  foggy  land  they  inhabit,  which  is  neither  a 
republic  nor  a  monarchy,  but  merely  a  languid 
expectation  of  something  undefined.  My  com- 
rade was  disposed  to  resent  the  dearth  of  beauty, 
not  only  on  this  vessel  but  throughout  the  Prov- 
inces generally,  —  a  resentment  that  could  be 
shown  to  be  unjust,  for  this  was  evidently  not 
the  season  for  beauty  in  these  lands,  and  it  was 
probably   a   bad   year   for    it.     Nor    should    an 


30  BADDECK, 

American  of  the  United  States  be  forward  to  set 
up  his  standard  of  taste  in  such  matters ;  neither 
in  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  nor  Cape  Breton 
have  I  heard  the  inhabitants  complain  of  the 
plainness  of  the  women. 

On  such  a  night  two  lovers  might  have  been 
seen,  but  not  on  our  boat,  leaning  over  the  taff- 
rail,  —  if  that  is  the  name  of  the  fence  around 
the  cabin-deck,  —  looking  at  the  moon  in  the 
western  sky  and  the  long  track  of  light  in  the 
steamer's  wake  with  unutterable  tenderness.  For 
the  sea  was  perfectly  smooth,  so  smooth  as  not 
to  interfere  with  the  most  perfect  tenderness  of 
feeling ;  and  the  vessel  forged  ahead  under  the 
stars  of  the  soft  night  with  an  adventurous  free- 
dom that  almost  concealed  the  commercial  na- 
ture of  her  mission.  It  seemed  —  this  voyaging 
through  the  sparkling  water,  under  the  scintillat- 
ing heavens,  this  resolute  pushing  into  the  open- 
ing splendors  of  night  —  like  a  pleasure  trip. 
"It  is  the  witching  hour  of  half  past  ten,"  said 
my  comrade,  "  let  us  turn  in."  (The  reader  will 
notice  the  consideration  for  her  feelings  w^hich  has 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  31 

omitted   the   usual   description  of  "a   sunset  at 
sea.") 

When  we  looked  from  our  state-room  window  in 
the  morning  we  saw  land.  We  were  passing  with- 
in a  stone's  throw  of  a  pale-green  and  rather  cold- 
looking  coast,  with  few  trees  or  other  evidences 
of  fertile  soil.  Upon  going  out  I  found  that  we 
were  in  the  harbor  of  Eastport.  I  found  also  the 
usual  tourist  who  had  been  up,  shivering  in  his 
winter  overcoat,  since  four  o'clock.  He  described 
to  me  the  magnificent  sunrise,  and  the  lifting  of 
the  fog  from  islands  and  capes,  in  language  that 
made  me  rejoice  that  he  had  seen  it.  He  knew 
all  about  the  harbor.  That  wooden  town  at  the 
foot  of  it,  with  the  white  spire,  was  Lubec ;  that 
wooden  town  we  were  approaching  was  Eastport. 
The  long  island  stretching  clear  across  the  harbor 
was  Campobello.  We  had  been  obliged  to  go 
round  it,  a  dozen  miles  out  of  our  way,  to  get  in, 
because  the  tide  was  in  such  a  stage  that  we 
could  not  enter  by  the  Lubec  Channel.  We  had 
been  obliged  to  enter  an  American  harbor  by 
British  waters. 


32  BADDECK, 


We  approached  Eastport  with  a  great  deal  of 
curiosity  and  considerable  respect.  It  had  been 
one  of  the  cities  of  the  imagination.  Lying  in  the 
far  east  of  our  great  territory,  a  military  and  even 
a  sort  of  naval  station,  a  conspicuous  name  on  the 
map,  prominent  in  boundary  disputes  and  in  war 
operations,  frequent  in  telegraphic  despatches, — 
we  had  imagined  it  a  solid  city,  with  some  Oriental, 
if  decayed,  peculiarity,  a  port  of  trade  and  com- 
merce. The  tourist  informed  me  that  Eastport 
looked  very  well  at  a  distance,  with  the  sun  shin- 
ing on  its  white  houses.  When  we  landed  at  its 
wooden  dock  we  saw  that  it  consisted  of  a  few 
piles  of  lumber,  a  sprinkling  of  small  cheap  houses 
along  a  sidehill,  a  big  hotel  with  a  flag-staff,  and  a 
very  peaceful  looking  arsenal.  It  is  doubtless  a 
very  enterprising  and  deserving  cit}^,  but  its  as- 
pect that  morning  was  that  of  cheapness,  newness, 
and  stagnation,  with  no  compensating  picturesque- 
ness.  White  paint  always  looks  chilly  under  a 
gray  sky  and  on  naked  hills.  Even  in  hot  Au- 
gust the  place  seemed  bleak.  The  tourist,  who 
went  ashore  with  a  view  to  breakfast,  said  that  it 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  33 

would  be  a  good  place  to  stay  in  and  go  a-fish- 
ing  and  picnicking  on  Campobello  Island.  It  has 
another  advantage  for  the  wicked  over  other 
Maine  towns.  Owing  to  the  contiguity  of  British 
territory,  the  Maine  Law  is  constantly  evaded, 
in  spirit.  The  thirsty  citizen  or  sailor  has  only 
to  step  into  a  boat  and  give  it  a  shove  or  two 
across  the  narrow  stream  that  separates  the 
United  States  from  Deer  Island  and  land,  when 
he  can  ruin  his  breath,  and  return  before  he  is 
missed. 

This  might  be  a  cause  of  war  with  England, 
but  it  is  not  the  most  serious  grievance  here. 
The  possession  by  the  British  of  the  island  of 
Campobello  is  an  insufferable  menace  and  imperti- 
nence. I  write  with  the  full  knowledge  of  what 
war  is.  We  ought  to  instantly  dislodge  the  Brit- 
ish from  Campobello.  It  entirely  shuts  up  and 
commands  our  harbor,  —  one  of  our  chief  Eastern 
harbors  and  war  stations,  where  we  keep  a  flag 
and  cannon  and  some  soldiers,  and  where  the 
customs  officers  look  out  for  smuggling.  There  is 
no  way  to  get  into  our   own   harbor,   except  in 


34  BADDECK, 


favorable  conditions  of  the  tide,  without  begging 
the  courtesy  of  a  passage  through  British  waters. 
Why  is  England  permitted  to  stretch  along  down 
our  coast  in  this  straggling  and  inquisitive  man- 
ner ?  She  might  almost  as  well  own  Long  Island. 
It  was  impossible  to  prevent  our  cheeks  mantling 
with  shame  as  we  thought  of  this,  and  saw  our- 
selves, free  American  citizens,  land-locked  by  alien 
soil  in  our  own  harbor. 

We  ought  to  have  war,  if  war  is  necessary  to 
possess  Campobello  and  Deer  Islands ;  or  else  we 
ought  to  give  the  British  Eastport.  I  am  not 
sure  but  the  latter  would  be  the  better  course. 

With  this  war  spirit  in  our  hearts,  we  sailed 
away  into  the  British  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
but  keeping  all  the  morning  so  close  to  the  New 
Brunswick  shore  that  we  could  see  there  was 
nothing  on  it ;  that  is,  nothing  that  would  make 
one  wish  to  land.  And  yet  the  best  part  of  going 
to  sea  is  keeping  close  to  the  shore,  however  tame 
it  may  be,  if  the  weather  is  pleasant.  A  pretty 
bay  now  and  then,  a  rocky  cove  with  scant  foli- 
age, a  lighthouse,  a  rude  cabin,  a  level  land,  mo- 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  35 

notonous  and  without  noble  forests,  —  this  was 
New  Brunswick  as  we  coasted  along  it  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances.  But  we  were  ad- 
vancing into  the  Bay  of  Fundy ;  and  my  comrade, 
who  had  been  brought  up  on  its  high  tides  in  the 
district  school,  was  on  the  lookout  for  this  phe- 
nomenon. The  very  name  of  Fundy  is  stimu- 
lating to  the  imagination,  amid  the  geographical 
wastes  of  youth,  and  the  young  fancy  reaches  out 
to  its  tides  with  an  enthusiasm  that  is  given  only 
to  Fingal's  Cave  and  other  pictorial  wonders  of  the 
text-book.  I  am  sure  the  district  schools  would 
become  what  they  are  not  now,  if  the  geographers 
would  make  the  other  parts  of  the  globe  as  at- 
tractive as  the  sonorous  Bay  of  Fundy.  The 
recitation  about  that  is  always  an  easy  one ; 
there  is  a  lusty  pleasure  in  the  mere  shouting  out 
of  the  name,  as  if  the  speaking  it  were  an  inno- 
cent sort  of  swearing.  From  the  Bay  of  Fundy 
the  rivers  run  up  hill  half  the  time,  and  the  tides 
are  from  forty  to  ninety  feet  high.  For  myself,  I 
confess  that,  in  my  imagination,  I  used  to  see  the 
tides  of  this  bay  go  stalking  into  the  land  like 


36  BADDECK, 


gigantic  water-spouts;  or,  when  I  was  better 
instructed,  I  could  see  them  advancing  on  the 
coast  like  a  solid  wall  of  masonry  eighty  feet 
high.  "  Where,"  we  said,  as  we  came  easily,  and 
neither  up  hill  nor  down  hill,  into  the  pleasant 
harbor  of  St.  John,  —  "  where  are  the  tides  of 
our  youth  ? " 

They  were  probably  out,  for  when  we  came  to 
the  land  we  walked  out  upon  the  foot  of  a  sloping 
platform  that  ran  into  the  water  by  the  side  of 
the  piles  of  the  dock,  which  stood  up  naked  and 
blackened  high  in  the  air.  It  is  not  the  purpose 
of  this  paper  to  describe  St.  John,  nor  to  dwell 
upon  its  picturesque  situation.  As  one  ap- 
proaches it  from  the  harbor  it  gives  a  promise 
which  its  rather  shabby  streets,  decaying  houses, 
and  steep  plank  sidewalks  do  not  keep.  A  city 
set  on  a  hill,  with  flags  flying  from  a  roof  here 
and  there,  and  a  few  shining  spires  and  walls  glis- 
tening in  the  sun,  always  looks  well  at  a  distance. 
St.  John  is  extravagant  in  the  matter  of  flag- 
staffs  ;  almost  every  well-to-do  citizen  seems  to 
have  one  on  his  premises,  as  a  sort  of  vent  for  his 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  37 

loyalty,  I  presume.  It  is  a  good  fashion,  at  any 
rate,  and  its  more  general  adoption  by  us  would 
add  to  the  gayety  of  our  cities  when  we  celebrate 
the  birthday  of  the  President.  St.  John  is  built 
on  a  steep  sidehill,  from  which  it  would  be  in 
danger  of  sliding  off,  if  its  houses  were  not  mor- 
tised into  the  solid  rock.  This  makes  the  house- 
foundations  secure,  but  the  labor  of  blasting  out 
streets  is  considerable.  We  note  these  things 
complacently  as  we  toil  in  the  sun  up  the  hill  to 
the  Victoria  Hotel,  which  stands  well  up  on  the 
backbone  of  the  ridge,  and  from  the  upper  windows 
of  which  we  have  a  fine  view  of  the  harbor,  and  of 
the  hill  opposite,  above  Carleton,  where  there  is 
the  brokenly  truncated  ruin  of  a  round  stone 
tower.  This  tower  was  one  of  the  first  things 
that  caught  our  eyes  as  we  entered  the  harbor. 
It  gave  an  antique  picturesqueness  to  the  land- 
scape which  it  entirely  wanted  without  this. 
Round  stone  towers  are  not  so  common  in  this 
world  that  we  can  afford  to  be  indifferent  to  them. 
This  is  called  a  Martello  tower,  but  I  could  not 
learn  who  built  it.     I  could  not  understand  the 


38  BAD  DECK, 


indifference,  almost  amounting  to  contempt,  of 
the  citizens  of  St.  John  in  regard  to  this  their 
only  piece  of  curious  antiquity.  "It  is  nothing 
but  the  ruins  of  an  old  fort,"  they  said;  "you  can 
see  it  as  well  from  here  as  by  going  there."  It 
was,  however,  the  one  thing  at  St.  John  I  was 
determined  to  see.  But  we  never  got  any  nearer 
to  it  than  the  ferry-landing.  Want  of  time  and 
the  vis  inertia  of  the  place  were  against  us.  And 
now,  as  I  think  of  that  tower  and  its  perhaps 
mysterious  origin,  I  have  a  longing  for  it  that  the 
possession  of  nothing  else  in  the  Provinces  could 
satisfy. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  we  were  on 
our  way  to  Baddeck  ;  that  the  whole  purpose  of 
the  journey  was  to  reach  Baddeck  ;  that  St.  John 
was  only  an  incident  in  the  trip  ;  that  any  infor- 
mation about  St.  John,  which  is  here  thrown  in  or 
mercifully  withheld,  is  entirely  gratuitous,  and  is 
not  taken  into  account  in  the  price  the  reader 
pays  for  this  volume.  But  if  any  one  wants  to 
know  what  sort  of  a  place  St.  John  is,  we  can  tell 
him :  it  is  the  sort  of  a  place  that  if  you  get  into 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING,  39 

it  after  eight  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning,  you 
cannot  get  out  of  it  in  any  direction  until  Thurs- 
day morning  at  eight  o'clock,  unless  you  want  to 
smuggle  goods  on  the  night  train  to  Bangor.  It 
was  eleven  o'clock  Wednesday  forenoon  when  we 
arrived  at  St.  John.  The  Inter-colonial  railway 
train  had  gone  to  Shediac ;  it  had  gone  also  on 
its  roundabout  Moncton,  Missaquat  River,  Truro, 
Stewiack,  and  Shubenacadie  way  to  Halifax ;  the 
boat  had  gone  to  Digby  Gut  and  Annapolis  to 
catch  the  train  that  way  for  Halifax ;  the  boat 
had  gone  up  the  river  to  Frederick,  the  capital. 
We  could  go  to  none  of  these  places  till  the  next 
day.  We  had  no  desire  to  go  to  Frederick,  but 
we  made  the  fact  that  we  were  cut  off  from  it  an 
addition  to  our  injury.  The  people  of  St.  John 
have  this  peculiarity  :  they  never  start  to  go  any- 
where except  early  in  the  morning. 

The  reader  to  whom  time  is  nothing  does  not 
yet  appreciate  the  annoyance  of  our  situation. 
Our  time  was  strictly  limited.  The  active  world 
is  so  constituted  that  it  could  not  spare  us  more 
than  two  weeks.     We  must  reach  Baddeck  Satur- 


40  BADDECK. 


day  night  or  never.  To  go  home  without  seeing 
Baddeck  was  simply  intolerable.  Had  we  not  told 
everybody  that  we  were  going  to  Baddeck  1  Now, 
if  we  had  gone  to  Shediac  in  the  train  that  left 
St.  John  that  morning,  we  should  have  taken  the 
steamboat  that  would  have  carried  us  to  Port 
Hawksbury,  whence  a  stage  connected  with  a 
steamboat  on  the  Bras  d'Or,  which  (with  all  this 
profusion  of  relative  pronouns)  would  land  us  at 
Baddeck  on  Friday.  How  many  times  had  we 
been  over  this  route  on  the  map  and  the  prospec- 
tus of  travel !  And  now,  what  a  delusion  it 
seemed !  There  would  not  another  boat  leave 
Shediac  on  this  route  till  the  following  Tuesday, 
—  quite  too  late  for  our  purpose.  The  reader  sees 
where  we  were,  and  will  be  prepared,  if  he  has  a 
map  (and  any  feelings),  to  appreciate  the  masterly 
strategy  that  followed. 


11. 


During  the  pilgrimage  eveiything  does  not  suit  the  tastes  of 
the  pilgrim.  —Turkish  Proverb. 


NE  seeking  Baddeck,  as  a  possession, 
would  not  like  to  be  detained  a  prisoner 
even  in  Eden,  —  much  less  in  St.  John, 
which  is  unlike  Eden  in  several  important  respects. 
The  tree  of  knowledge  does  not  grow  there,  for 
one  thing ;  at  least  St.  John's  ignorance  of  Bad- 
deck  amounts  to  a  feature.  This  encountered  us 
everywhere.  So  dense  was  this  ignorance,  that 
we,  whose  only  knowledge  of  the  desired  place 
was  obtained  from  the  prospectus  of  travel,  came 
to  regard  ourselves  as  missionaries  of  geographical 
information  in  this  dark  provincial  city. 

The  clerk  at  the  Victoria  was  not  unwilling  to 
help  us  on  our  journey,  but  if  he  could  have  had 
his  way,  we  would  have  gone  to  a  place  on  Prince 


42  BADDECK, 


Edward  Island,  which  used  to  be  called  Bedeque, 
but  is  now  named  Summerside,  in  the  hope  of  at- 
tracting summer  visitors.  As  to  Cape  Breton,  he 
said  the  agent  of  the  Inter-colonial  could  tell  us 
all  about  that,  and  put  us  on  the  route.  We  re- 
paired to  the  agent.  The  kindness  of  this  person 
dwells  in  our  memory.  He  entered  at  once  into 
our  longings  and  perplexities.  He  produced  his 
maps  and  time-tables,  and  showed  us  clearly  what 
we  already  knew.  The  Port  Hawksbury  steam- 
boat from  Shediac  for  that  week  had  gone,  to  be 
sure,  but  we  could  take  one  of  another  line  which 
would  leave  us  at  Pictou,  whence  we  could  take 
another  across  to  Port  Hood,  on  Cape  Breton. 
This  looked  fair,  until  we  showed  the  agent  that 
there  was  no  steamer  to  Port  Hood. 

"  Ah,  then  you  can  go  another  way.  You  can 
take  the  Inter-colonial  railway  round  to  Pictou, 
catch  the  steamer  for  Port  Hawksbury,  connect 
with  the  steamer  on  the  Bras  d'Or,  and  you  are 
all  right." 

So  it  would  seem.  It  was  a  most  obliging 
agent ;  and  it  took  us  half  an  hour  to  convince 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  43 

him  that  the  train  would  reach  Pictou  half  a  day 
too  late  for  the  steamer,  that  no  other  boat  would 
leave  Pictou  for  Cape  Breton  that  week,  and  that 
even  if  we  could  reach  the  Bras  d'Or  we  should 
have  no  means  of  crossing  it,  except  by  swimming. 
The  perplexed  agent  thereupon  referred  us  to  Mr. 
Brown,  a  shipper  on  the  wharf,  who  knew  all 
about  Cape  Breton,  and  could  tell  us  exactly  how 
to  get  there.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  a  weight 
was  taken  off  our  minds.  We  pinned  our  faith  to 
Brown,  and  sought  him  in  his  warehouse.  Brown 
was  a  prompt  business  man,  and  a  traveller,  and 
would  know  every  route  and  every  conveyance 
from  Nova  Scotia  to  Cape  Breton. 

Mr.  Brown  was  not  in.  He  never  is  in.  His 
store  is  a  rusty  warehouse,  low  and  musty,  piled 
full  of  boxes  of  soap  and  candles  and  dried  fish, 
with  a  little  glass  cubby  in  one  corner,  where  a 
thin  clerk  sits  at  a  high  desk,  like  a  spider  in  his 
web.  Perhaps  he  is  a  spider,  for  the  cubby  is 
swarming  with  flies,  whose  hum  is  the  only  noise 
of  traffic ;  the  glass  of  the  window-sash  has  not 
been  washed  since  it  was  put  in,  apparently.     The 


44  BADDECK, 


clerk  is  not  writing,  and  has  evidently  no  other 
use  for  his  steel  pen  than  spearing  flies.  Brown 
is  out,  says  this  young  votary  of  commerce,  and 
will  not  be  in  till  half  past  five.  We  remark  upon 
the  fact  that  nobody  ever  is  ''in "  these  dingy 
warehouses,  wonder  when  the  business  is  done, 
and  go  out  into  the  street  to  wait  for  Brown. 
In  front  of  the  store  is  a  dray,  its  horse  fast 
asleep,  and  waiting  for  the  revival  of  commerce. 
The  travellers  note  that  the  dray  is  of  a  peculiar 
construction,  the  body  being  dropped  down  from 
the  axles  so  as  nearly  to  touch  the  gi'ound,  —  a 
great  convenience  in  loading  and  unloading ;  they 
propose  to  introduce  it  into  tlieir  native  land. 
The  dray  is  probably  waiting  for  the  tide  to  come 
in.  In  the  deep  slip  lie  a  dozen  helpless  vessels, 
coasting  schooners  mostly,  tipped  on  their  beam 
ends  in  the  mud,  or  propped  up  by  side-pieces  as 
if  they  were  built  for  land  as  w^ell  as  for  water. 
At  the  end  of  the  wharf  is  a  long  English  steam- 
boat unloading  railroad  iron,  which  will  return  to 
the  Clyde  full  of  Nova  Scotia  coal.  We  sit  down 
on  the  dock,  where  the  fresh  sea-breeze  comes  up 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  45 

the  harbor,  watch  the  lazily  swinging  crane  on  the 
vessel,  and  meditate  upon  the  greatness  of  Eng- 
land and  the  peacefidness  of  the  drowsy  afternoon. 
One's  feeling  of  rest  is  never  complete  unless  he 
can  see  somebody  else  at  work,  —  but  the  labor 
must  be  without  haste,  as  it  is  in  the  Provinces. 

While  waiting  for  Brown,  we  had  leisure  to  ex- 
plore the  shops  of  King's  Street,  and  to  climb  up 
to  the  grand  triumphal  arch  which  stands  on  top 
of  the  hill  and  guards  the  entrance  to  King's 
Square.  Of  the  shops  for  dry-goods  I  have  noth- 
ing to  say,  for  they  tempt  the  unwary  American 
to  violate  the  revenue  laws  of  his  country ;  but  he 
may  safely  go  into  the  book-shops.  The  literature 
which  is  displayed  in  the  windows  and  on  the 
counters  has  lost  that  freshness  which  it  once  may 
have  had,  and  is,  in  fact,  if  one  must  use  the  term, 
fly-specked,  like  the  cakes  in  the  grocery  windows 
on  the  side  streets.  There  are  old  illustrated 
newspapers  from  the  States,  cheap  novels  from 
the  same,  and  the  flashy  covers  of  the  London  and 
Edinburgh  sixpenny  editions.  But  this  is  the  dull 
season  for  literature,  we  reflect. 


46  BADDECK, 


It  will  always  be  matter  of  regret  to  us  that 
we  climbed  up  to  the  triumphal  arch,  which  ap- 
peared so  noble  in  the  distance,  with  the  trees 
behind  it.  For  when  we  reached  it,  we  found 
that  it  was  built  of  wood,  painted  and  sanded,  and 
in  a  shocking  state  of  decay ;  and  the  grove  to 
which  it  admitted  us  was  only  a  scant  assemblage 
of  sickly  locust-trees,  which  seemed  to  be  tired  of 
battling  with  the  unfavorable  climate,  and  had,  in 
fact,  already  retired  from  the  business  of  orna- 
mental shade-trees.  Adjoining  this  square  is  an 
ancient  cemetery,  the  surface  of  which  has  decayed 
in  sympathy  with  the  mouldering  remains  it  cov- 
ers, and  is  quite  a  model  in  this  respect.  I  have 
called  this  cemetery  ancient,  but  it  may  not  be  so, 
for  its  air  of  decay  is  thoroughly  modern,  and 
neglect,  and  not  years,  appears  to  have  made  it 
the  melancholy  place  of  repose  it  is.  Whether  it 
is  the  f^ishionable  and  favorite  resort  of  the  dead 
of  the  city  we  did  not  learn,  but  there  were  some 
old  men  sitting  in  its  damp  shades,  and  the  nurses 
appeared  to  make  it  a  rendezvous  for  their  baby- 
carriages,  —  a  cheerful  place  to  bring  up  children 


AND   TEAT  SORT   OF   THING.  47 

in,  and  to  familiarize  their  infant  minds  with  the 
fleeting  nature  of  provincial  life.  The  park  and 
burying-ground,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say, 
added  greatly  to  the  feeling  of  repose  which  stole 
over  us  on  this  sunny  day.  And  they  made  us 
long  for  Brown  and  his  information  about  Bad- 
deck. 

But  Mr.  Brown,  when  found,  did  not  know  as 
much  as  the  agent.  He  had  been  in  Nova  Scotia; 
he  had  never  been  in  Cape  Breton ;  but  he  pre- 
sumed we  would  find  no  difficulty  in  reaching 
Baddeck  by  so  and  so,  and  so  and  so.  We  con- 
sumed valuable  time  in  convincing  Brown  that  his 
directions  to  us  were  impracticable  and  valueless, 
and  then  he  referred  us  to  Mr.  Cope.  An  inter- 
view with  Mr.  Cope  discouraged  us;  we  found 
that  we  were  imparting  everywhere  more  geo- 
graphical information  than  we  were  receiving,  and 
as  our  own  stock  was  small,  we  concluded  that  we 
should  be  unable  to  enlighten  all  the  inhabitants 
of  St.  John  upon  the  subject  of  Baddeck  before  we 
ran  out.  Returning  to  the  hotel,  and  taking  our 
destiny  into  our  own  hands,  we  resolved  upon  a 
bold  stroke. 


48  BADDECK, 


But  to  return  for  a  moment  to  Brown.  I  feel 
that  Brown  has  been  let  off  too  easily  in  the  above 
paragraph.  His  conduct,  to  say  the  truth,  was 
not  such  as  we  expected  of  a  man  in  whom  we 
had  put  our  entire  faith  for  half  a  day,  —  a  long 
while  to  trust  anybody  in  these  times, — a  man 
whom  we  had  exalted  as  an  encyclopaedia  of  informa- 
tion, and  idealized  in  every  way.  A  man  of  wealth 
and  liberal  views  and  courtly  manners  we  had  de- 
cided Brown  would  be.  Perhaps  he  had  a  suburb- 
an villa  on  the  heights  overlooking  Kennebeckasis 
Bay,  and,  recognizing  us  as  brothers  in  a  common 
interest  in  Baddeck,  notwithstanding  our  different 
nationality,  would  insist  upon  taking  us  to  his 
house,  to  sip  provincial  tea  with  Mrs.  Brown  and 
Victoria  Louise,  his  daughter.  When,  therefore, 
Mr.  Brown  whisked  into  his  dingy  office,  and,  but 
for  our  importunity,  would  have  paid  no  more  at- 
tention to  us  than  to  up-country  customers  without 
credit,  and  when  he  proved  to  be  willingly,  it 
seemed  to  us,  ignorant  of  Baddeck,  our  feelings 
received  a  great  shock.  It  is  incomprehensible 
that  a  man  in  the  position  of  Brown  —  with  so 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  49 

many  boxes  of  soap  and  candles  to  dispose  of — 
should  be  so  ignorant  of  a  neighboring  province. 
We  had  heard  of  the  cordial  unity  of  the  provinces 
in  the  New  Dominion.  Heaven  help  it,  if  it  de- 
pends upon  such  fellows  as  Brown !  Of  course, 
his  directing  us  to  Cope  was  a  mere  fetch.  For, 
as  we  have  intimated,  it  would  have  taken  us 
longer  to  have  given  Cope  an  idea  of  Baddeck,  than 
it  did  to  enlighten  Brown.  But  we  had  no  bitter 
feelings  about  Cope,  for  we  never  had  reposed  con- 
fidence in  him. 

Our  plan  of  campaign  was  briefly  this  :  To  take 
the  steamboat  at  eight  o'clock,  Thursday  morning, 
for  Digby  Gut  and  Annapolis;  thence  to  go  by 
rail  through  the  poetical  Acadia  down  to  Halifax ; 
to  turn  north  and  east  by  rail  from  Halifax  to  New 
Glasgow,  and  from  thence  to  push  on  by  stage  to 
the  Gut  of  Canso.  This  would  carry  us  over  the 
entire  leng-th  of  Nova  Scotia,  and,  with  good  luck, 
land  us  on  Cape  Breton  Island  Saturday  morning. 
When  we  should  set  foot  on  that  island,  we  trusted 
that  we  should  be  able  to  make  our  way  to  Bad- 
deck,  by  walking,  swimming,  or  riding,  whichever 


50  BADDECK, 


sort  of  locomotion  should  be  most  popular  in  that 
province.  Our  imaginations  were  kindled  by  read- 
ing that  the  ''most  superb  line  of  stages  on  the 
continent "  ran  from  New  Glasgow  to  the  Gut  of 
Canso.  If  the  reader  perfectly  understands  this 
programme,  he  has  the  advantage  of  the  two  trav- 
ellers at  the  time  they  made  it. 

It  was  a  gi'ay  morning  when  we  embarked  from 
St.  John,  and  in  fact  a  little  drizzle  of  rain  veiled 
the  Martello  tower,  and  checked,  like  the  cross- 
strokes  of  a  line  engraving,  the  hill  on  which  it 
stands.  The  miscellaneous  shipping  of  such  a 
harbor  appears  best  in  a  golden  haze,  or  in  the 
mist  of  a  morning  like  this.  We  had  expected 
days  of  fog  in  this  region ;  but  the  fog  seemed  to 
have  gone  out  with  the  high  tides  of  the  geography. 
And  it  is  simple  justice  to  these  possessions  of  her 
Majesty,  to  say  that  in  our  two  weeks'  acquaintance 
of  them  they  enjoyed  as  delicious  weather  as  ever 
falls  on  sea  and  shore,  with  the  exception  of  this 
day  when  we  crossed  the  Bay  of  Fundy.  And  this 
day  was  only  one  of  those  cool  interludes  of  low 
color,  which  an  artist  would  be  thankful  to  intro- 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  51 

duce  among  a  group  of  brilliant  pictures.  Such  a 
day  rests  the  traveller,  who  is  over-stimulated  by 
shifting  scenes  played  upon  by  the  dazzling  sun. 
So  the  cool  gray  clouds  spread  a  grateful  umbrella 
above  us  as  we  ran  across  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
sighted  the  headlands  of  the  Gut  of  Digby,  and 
entered  into  the  Annapolis  Basin,  and  into  the 
region  of  a  romantic  history.  The  white  houses 
of  Digby,  scattered  over  the  downs  like  a  flock  of 
washed  sheep,  had  a  somewhat  chilly  aspect,  it  is 
true,  and  made  us  long  for  the  sun  on  them.  But 
as  I  think  of  it  now,  I  prefer  to  have  the  town 
and  the  pretty  hillsides  that  stand  about  the  basin 
in  the  light  we  saw  them ;  and  especially  do  I  like 
to  recall  the  high  wooden  pier  at  Digby,  deserted 
by  the  tide  and  so  blown  by  the  wind  that  the  pas- 
sengers who  came  out  on  it,  with  their  tossing 
drapery,  brought  to  mind  the  windy  Dutch  har- 
bors that  Backhiiysen  painted.  We  landed  a 
priest  here,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  him  as  he 
walked  along  the  high  pier,  his  broad  hat  flapping, 
and  the  wind  blowing  his  long  skirts  away  from 
his  ecclesiastical  legs. 


52  BADDECK, 


It  was  one  of  the  coincidences  of  life,  for  which 
no  one  can  account,  that  when  we  descended  upon 
these  coasts,  the  Governor-General  of  the  Dominion 
was  abroad  in  his  Provinces.  There  was  an  air  of 
expectation  of  him  everywhere,  and  of  preparation 
for  his  coming;  his  lordship  was  the  subject  of 
conversation  on  the  Digby  boat,  his  movements 
were  chronicled  in  the  newspapers,  and  the  gracious 
bearing  of  the  Governor  and  Lady  DufTerin  at  the 
civic  receptions,  balls,  and  picnics  was  recorded 
with  loyal  satisfacton ;  even  a  literary  flavor  was 
given  to  the  provincial  journals  by  quotations  from 
his  lordship's  condescension  to  letters  in  the  "  High 
Latitudes."  It  was  not  without  pain,  however, 
that  even  in  this  un-American  region  we  discovered 
the  old  Adam  of  jounialism  in  the  disposition  of 
the  newspapers  of  St.  John  toward  sarcasm  touch- 
ing the  well-meant  attempts  to  entertain  the  Gov- 
ernor and  his  lady  in  the  provincial  town  of 
Halifax,  —  a  disposition  to  turn,  in  short,  upon  the 
demonstrations  of  loyal  worship  the  faint  light  of 
ridicule.  There  were  those  upon  the  boat  who 
were  journeying  to  Halifax  to  take  part  in  the  civic 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  63 

ball  about  to  be  given  to  their  excellencies,  and  as 
we  were  going  in  the  same  direction,  we  shared  in 
the  feeling  of  satisfaction  which  proximity  to  the 
Great  often  excites. 

We  had  other  if  not  deeper  causes  of  satisfaction. 
We  were  sailing  along  the  gracefully  moulded  and 
tree-covered  hills  of  the  Annapolis  Basin,  and  up 
the  mildly  picturesque  river  of  that  name,  and  we 
were  about  to  enter  what  the  provincials  all  en- 
thusiastically call  the  Garden  of  Nova  Scotia. 
This  favored  vale,  skirted  by  low  ranges  of  hills 
on  either  hand,  and  watered  most  of  the  way  by 
the  Annapolis  River,  extends  from  the  mouth  of  the 
latter  to  the  town  of  Windsor  on  the  river  Avon. 
We  expected  to  see  something  like  the  fertile 
valleys  of  the  Connecticut  or  the  Mohawk.  We 
should  also  pass  through  those  meadows  on  the 
Basin  of  Minas,  which  Mr.  Longfellow  has  made 
more  sadly  poetical  than  any  other  spot  on  the 
Western  Continent.  It  is, — this  valley  of  the 
Annapolis,  —  in  the  belief  of  provincials,  the  most 
beautiful  and  blooming  place  in  the  world,  with  a 
soil  and  climate  kind  to  the  husbandman,  a  land 


54  BADDECK, 


of  fair  meadows,  orchards,  and  vines.  It  was 
doubtless  our  own  fault  that  this  land  did  not  look 
to  us  like  a  garden,  as  it  does  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Nova  Scotia ;  and  it  was  not  until  we  had  trav- 
elled over  the  rest  of  the  country,  that  we  saw  the 
appropriateness  of  the  designation.  The  explana- 
tion is,  that  not  so  much  is  required  of  a  garden 
here  as  in  some  other  parts  of  the  world.  Excel- 
lent apples,  none  finer,  are  exported  from  this  val- 
ley to  England,  and  the  quality  of  the  potatoes 
is  said  to  approach  an  ideal  perfection  here.  I 
should  think  that  oats  would  ripen  well  also  in  a 
good  year,  and  grass,  for  those  who  care  for  it,  may 
be  satisfactory.  I  should  judge  that  the  other 
products  of  this  garden  are  fish  and  building-stone. 
But  we  anticipate.  And  have  we  forgotten  the 
"■  murmuring  pines  and  the  hemlocks  "  1  Nobody, 
I  suppose,  ever  travels  here  without  believing  that 
he  sees  these  trees  of  the  imagination,  so  forcibly 
has  the  poet  projected  them  upon  the  universal 
consciousness.  But  we  were  unable  to  see  them, 
on  this  route. 

It  would  be  a  brutal  thing  for  us  to  take  seats 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  55 

in  the  railway  train  at  Annapolis,  and  leave  the 
ancient  town,  with  its  modern  houses  and  remains, 
of  old  fortifications,  without  a  thought  of  the  ro- 
mantic history  which  saturates  the  region.  There 
is  not  much  in  the  smart,  new  restaurant,  w^here  a 
tidy  waiting-maid  skilfully  depreciates  our  curren- 
cy in  exchange  for  bread  and  cheese  and  ale,  to 
recall  tae  early  drama  of  the  French  discovery  and 
settlement.  For  it  is  to  the  French  that  we  owe 
the  poetical  interest  that  still  invests,  like  a  gar- 
ment, all  these  islands  and  bays,  just  as  it  is  to 
the  Spaniards  that  we  owe  the  romance  of  the 
Florida  coast.  Every  spot  on  this  continent  that 
either  of  these  races  has  touched  has  a  color  that 
is  wanting  in  the  prosaic  settlements  of  the  Eng- 
lish. Without  the  historical  light  of  French  ad- 
venture upon  this  town  and  basin  of  Annapolis,  or 
Port  Royal,  as  they  were  first  named,  I  confess 
that  I  should  have  no  longing  to  stay  here  for  a 
week ;  notwithstanding  the  guide-book  distinctly 
says  that  this  harbor  has  "a  striking  resemblance 
to  the  beautiful  Bay  of  Naples."  I  am  not  offended 
at  this  remark,  for  it  is  the  one  always  made  about 


66  BADDECK, 


a  harbor,  and  I  am  sure  the  passing  traveller  can 
stand  it,  if  the  Bay  of  Naples  can.  And  yet  this 
tranquil  basin  must  have  seemed  a  haven  of  peace 
to  the  first  discoverers. 

It  was  on  a  lovely  summer  day  in  160i,  that 
the  Sieur  de  Monts  and  his  comrades,  Champlain 
and  the  Baron  de  Poutrincourt,  beating  about  the 
shores  of  Nova  Scotia,  were  invited  by  the  rocky 
gateway  of  the  Port  Royal  Basin.  They  entered 
the  small  inlet,  says  Mr.  Parkman,  when  suddenly 
the  narrow  strait  dilated  into  a  broad  and  tran- 
quil basin,  compassed  with  sunny  hills,  wrapped 
with  woodland  verdure  and  alive  with  waterfalls. 
Poutrincourt  was  delighted  with  the  scene,  and 
would  fain  remove  thither  from  France  with  his 
family.  Since  Poutrincourt's  day,  the  hills  have 
been  somewhat  denuded  of  trees,  and  the  water- 
falls are  not  now  in  sight ;  at  least,  not  under  such 
a  gray  sky  as  we  saw. 

The  reader  who  once  begins  to  look  into  the 
French  occupancy  of  Acadia  is  in  danger  of  get- 
ting into  a  sentimental  vein,  and  sentiment  is  the 
one   thing   to  be  shunned  in  these  days.     Yet  I 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  57 

cannot  but  stay,  though  the  train  should  leave  us,  to 
pay  my  respectful  homage  to  one  of  the  most  heroic 
of  women,  whose  name  recalls  the  most  romantic 
incident  in  the  history  of  this  region.  Out  of  this 
past  there  rises  no  figure  so  captivating  to  the 
imagination  as  that  of  Madame  de  la  Tour.  And 
it  is  noticeable  that  woman  has  a  curious  habit  of 
coming  to  the  front  in  critical  moments  of  history, 
and  performing  some  exploit  that  eclipses  in  brill- 
iancy all  the  deeds  of  contemporary  men  ;  and  the 
exploit  usually  ends  in  a  pathetic  tragedy,  that 
fixes  it  forever  in  the  sympathy  of  the  world.  I 
need  not  copy  out  of  the  pages  of  De  Charlevoix 
the  well-known  story  of  Madame  de  la  Tour;  I 
only  wish  he  had  told  us  more  about  her.  It  is 
here  at  Port  Royal  that  we  first  see  her  with  her 
husband.  Charles  de  St.  Etienne,  the  Chevalier 
de  la  Tour,  —  there  is  a  world  of  romance  in  these 
mere  names,  —  was  a  Huguenot  nobleman  who 
had  a  grant  of  Port  Royal  and  of  La  Heve,  from 
Louis  XIIL  He  ceded  La  Heve  to  Razilli,  t^e 
governor-in-chief  of  the  provinces,  who  took  a  fancy 
to  it,  for  a  residence.     He  was  living  peacefully  at 


58  BADDECK, 


Port  Royal  in  1647,  when  the  Chevalier  d'Aunay 
Chamis^,  having  succeeded  his  brother  Razilli  at 
La  H^ve,  tired  of  that  place,  and  removed  to  Port 
Roj^al.  De  Charnise  was  a  Catholic ;  the  difference 
in  religion  might  not  have  produced  any  unpleas- 
antness, but  the  tw^o  noblemen  could  not  agree  in 
dividing  the  profits  of  the  peltry  trade,  —  each 
being  covetous,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  of  the  hide 
of  the  savage  continent,  and  determined  to  take  it 
off  for  himself.  At  any  rate,  disagreement  arose, 
and  De  la  Tour  moved  over  to  the  St.  John,  of 
which  region  his  father  had  enjoyed  a  grant  from 
Charles  I.  of  England,  —  whose  sad  fate  it  is  not 
necessary  now  to  recall  to  the  reader's  mind, — 
and  built  a  fort  at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  But  the 
differences  of  the  two  ambitious  Frenchmen  could 
not  be  composed.  De  la  Tour  obtained  aid  from 
Governor  Winthrop  at  Boston,  thus  verifying  the 
Catholic  prediction  that  the  Huguenots  would  side 
with  the  enemies  of  France  on  occasion.  De  Char- 
nis6  received  orders  from  Louis  to  arrest  De  la 
Tour ;  but  a  little  preliminary  to  the  arrest  was 
the  possession  of  the  fort  of  St.  John,  and  this  he 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  59 

could  not  obtain,  although  he  sent  all  his  force 
against  it.  Taking  advantage,  however,  of  the 
absence  of  De  la  Tour,  who  had  a  habit  of  roving 
about,  he  one  day  besieged  St.  John.  Madame  de 
la  Tour  headed  the  little  handful  of  men  in  the 
fort,  and  made  such  a  gallant  resistance  that  De 
Charnise  was  obliged  to  draw  off  his  fleet  with  the 
loss  of  thirty-three  men,  —  a  very  serious  loss, 
when  the  supply  of  men  was  as  distant  as  France. 
But  De  Charnise  would  not  be  balked  by  a 
woman ;  he  attacked  again ;  and  this  time,  one 
of  the  garrison,  a  Swiss,  betrayed  the  fort,  and  let 
the  invaders  into  the  walls  by  an  unguarded  en- 
trance. It  was  Easter  morning  when  this  misfor- 
tune occurred,  but  the  peaceful  influence  of  the 
day  did  not  avail.  When  Madame  saw  that  she 
was  betrayed,  her  spirits  did  not  quail ;  she  took 
refuge  with  her  little  band  in  a  detached  part  of 
the  fort,  and  there  made  such  a  bold  show  of  de- 
fence, that  De  Charnise  was  obliged  to  agree  to 
the  terms  of  her  surrender,  which  she  dictated. 
No  sooner  had  this  unchivalrous  fellow  obtained 
possession  of  the  fort  and  of  this  Historic  Woman, 


60  BADDECK, 


than,  overcome  with  a  false  shame  that  he  had 
made  terms  with  a  woman,  he  violated  his  noble 
word,  and  condemned  to  death  all  the  men,  except 
one,  who  was  spared  on  condition  that  he  should 
be  the  executioner  of  the  others.  And  the  pol- 
troon compelled  the  brave  woman  to  witness  the 
execution,  with  the  added  indignity  of  a  rope  round 
her  neck,  —  or  as  De  Charlevoix  much  more  neatly 
expresses  it,  "  obligea  sa  prisonniere  dU  assister  jI 
I'execution,  la  corde  au  cou." 

To  the  shock  of  this  lion-or  the  womanly  spirit 
of  Madame  de  la  Tour  succumbed ;  she  fell  into 
a  decline  and  died  soon  after.  De  la  Tour,  him- 
self an  exile  from  his  province,  wandered  about 
the  New  World  in  his  customary  pursuit  of  pel- 
try. He  was  seen  at  Quebec  for  two  years.  While 
there,  he  heard  of  the  death  of  De  Charnis^,  and 
straightway  repaired  to  St.  John.  The  widow  of  his 
late  enemy  received  him  graciously,  and  he  entered 
into  possession  of  the  estate  of  the  late  occupant 
with  the  consent  of  all  the  heirs.  To  remove  all 
roots  of  bitterness,  De  la  Tour  married  Madame 
de  Charnis^,  and  history  does  not  record  any  ill  of 


AND    THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  61 

either  of  them.  I  trust  they  had  the  grace  to 
plant  a  sweetbrier  on  the  grave  of  the  noble 
woman  to  whose  faithfulness  and  courage  they  owe 
their  rescue  from  obscurity.  At  least  the  parties 
to  this  singular  union  must  have  agreed  to  ignore 
the  lamented  existence  of  the  Chevalier  d*x\unay. 

With  the  Chevalier  de  la  Tour,  at  any  rate,  it 
all  went  well  thereafter.  When  Cromwell  drove 
the  French  from  Acadia,  he  granted  great  terri- 
torial rights  to  De  la  Tour,  which  that  thrifty 
adventurer  sold  out  to  one  of  his  co-grantees  for 
£  16,000 ;  and  he  no  doubt  invested  the  money 
in  peltry  for  the  London  market. 

As  we  leave  the  station  at  Annapolis,  we  are 
obliged  to  put  Madame  de  la  Tour  out  of  our 
minds  to  make  room  for  another  woman  whose 
name,  and  we  might  say  presence,  fills  all  the  valley 
before  us.  So  it  is  that  woman  continues  to  reign, 
where  she  has  once  got  a  foothold,  long  after  her 
dear  frame  has  become  dust.  Evangeline,  who  is 
as  real  a  personage  as  Queen  Esther,  must  have 
been  a  different  woman  from  Madame  de  la  Tour. 
If  the  latter  had  lived  at  Grand  Pre,  she  would,  I 


62  BADDECK, 


trust,  have  made  it  hot  for  the  brutal  English  who 
drove  the  Acadians  out  of  their  salt-marsh  para- 
dise, and  have  died  in  her  heroic  shoes  rather  than 
float  off  into  poetry.  But  if  it  should  come  to  the 
question  of  marrj'ing  the  De  la  Tour  or  the  Evan- 
geline, I  think  no  man  who  was  not  engaged  in 
the  peltry  trade  would  hesitate  which  to  choose. 
At  any  rate,  the  women  who  love  have  more  in- 
fluence in  the  world  than  the  women  who  fight, 
and  so  it  happens  that  the  sentimental  traveller 
who  passes  through  Port  Royal  without  a  tear  for 
Madame  de  la  Tour,  begins  to  be  in  a  glow  of  ten- 
der longing  and  regret  for  Evangeline  as  soon  as 
he  enters  the  valley  of  the  Annapolis  River.  For 
myself,  I  expected  to  see  written  over  the  railway 
crossings  the  legend,  — 

"ILook  out  for  lEbanuEline  iufjile  tlje  53cU  rinp.** 

When  one  rides  into  a  region  of  romance  he 
does  not  much  notice  his  speed  or  his  carriage  ; 
but  1  am  obliged  to  say  that  we  were  not  hurried 
up  the  valley,  and  that  the  cars  were  not  too 
luxurious  for  the  plain  people,  priests,  clergymen, 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  63 

and  belles  of  the  region,  who  rode  in  them.  Evi- 
dently the  latest  fashions  had  not  arrived  in  the 
Provinces,  and  we  had  an  opportunity  of  studying 
anew  those  that  had  long  passed  away  in  the 
States,  and  of  remarking  how  inappropriate  a  fash- 
ion is  when  it  has  ceased  to  be  the  fashion. 

The  river  becomes  small  shortly  after  we  leave 
Annapolis  and  before  we  reach  Paradise.  At  this 
station  of  happy  appellation  we  looked  for  the 
satirist  who  named  it,  but  he  has  probably  sold 
out  and  removed.  If  the  effect  of  wit  is  produced 
by  the  sudden  recognition  of  a  remote  resemblance, 
there  was  nothing  witty  in  the  naming  of  this 
station.  Indeed,  we  looked  in  vain  for  the  "  gar- 
den "  appearance  of  the  valley.  There  was  noth- 
ing generous  in  the  small  meadows  or  the  thin 
orchards;  and  if  large  trees  ever  grew  on  the 
bordering  hills,  they  have  given  place  to  rather 
stunted  evergreens ;  the  scraggy  firs  and  balsams, 
in  fact,  possess  Nova  Scotia  generally  as  we  saw  it, 
—  and  there  is  nothing  more  uninteresting  and 
wearisome  than  large  tracts  of  these  woods.  We 
are  bound  to  believe  that  Nova  Scotia  has  some- 


64  BADDECK, 


where,  or  had,  great  pines  and  hemlocks  that  mur- 
mur, but  we  were  not  blessed  with  the  sight  of 
them.  Slightly  picturesque  this  valley  is  with  its 
winding  river  and  high  hills  guarding  it,  and  per- 
haps a  person  would  enjoy  a  foot-tramp  down  it ; 
but  I  think  he  would  find  little  peculiar  or  inter- 
esting after  he  left  the  neighborhood  of  the  Basin 
of  Minas. 

Before  we  reached  Wolfville  we  came  in  sight  of 
this  basin  and  some  of  the  estuaries  and  streams 
that  run  into  it ;  that  is,  when  the  tide  goes  out ; 
but  they  are  only  muddy  ditches  half  the  time. 
The  Acadia  College  was  pointed  out  to  us  at  Wolf- 
ville by  a  person  who  said  that  it  is  a  feeble  in- 
stitution, a  remark  we  were  sorry  to  hear  of  a  place 
described  as  "  one  of  the  foremost  seats  of  learning 
in  the  Province."  But  our  regret  was  at  once 
extinguished  by  the  announcement  that  the  next 
station  was  Grand  Pr6!  We  were  within  three 
miles  of  the  most  poetic  place  in  North  America. 

There  was  on  the  train  a  young  man  from  Bos- 
ton, who  said  that  he  was  born  in  Grand  Vrk  It 
seemed  impossible  that  we  should  actually  be  near 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  65 

a  person  so  felicitously  born.  He  had  a  justifiable 
pride  in  the  fact,  as  well  as  in  the  bride  by  his 
side,  whom  he  was  taking  to  see  for  the  first  time 
his  old  home.  His  local  information,  imparted  to 
her,  overflowed  upon  us ;  and  when  he  found  that 
we  had  read  "  Evangeline,"  his  delight  in  making 
us  acquainted  with  the  scene  of  that  poem  was 
pleasant  to  see.  The  village  of  Grand  Pre  is  a  mile 
from  the  station ;  and  perhaps  the  reader  would 
like  to  know  exactly  what  the  traveller,  hastening 
on  to  Baddeck,  can  see  of  the  famous  locality. 

We  looked  over  a  well-grassed  meadow,  seamed 
here  and  there  by  beds  of  streams  left  bare  by  the 
receding  tide,  to  a  gentle  swell  in  the  ground  upon 
which  is  a  not  heavy  forest  growth.  The  trees 
partly  conceal  the  street  of  Grand  Prfe,  which  is 
only  a  road  bordered  by  common  houses.  Beyond 
is  the  Basin  of  Minas,  with  its  sedgy  shore,  its 
dreary  flats;  and  beyond  that  projects  a  bold 
headland,  standing  perpendicular  against  the  sky. 
This  is  the  Cape  Blomedon,  and  it  gives  a  certain 
dignity  to  the  picture. 

The  old  Normandy  picturesqueness  has  departed 


66  BADDECK, 


from  the  village  of  Grand  Pr6.  Yankee  settlers, 
we  were  told,  possess  it  now,  and  there  are  no  de- 
scendants of  the  French  Acadians  in  this  valley. 
I  believe  that  Mr.  Cozzens  found  some  of  them  in 
humble  circumstances  in  a  village  on  the  other 
coast,  not  far  from  Halifax,  and  it  is  there,  proba- 
bly, that  the 

"Maidens  still  wear  their  Norman  caps  and  their  kirtles  of 
homespun. 
And  by  the  evening  fire  repeat  Evangeline's  story,  — 
While  from  its  rocky  caverns  the  deep-voiced,  neighboring 

ocean 
Speaks,  and  in  accents  disconsolate  answers  the  wail  of  the 
forest." 
At  any  rate,  there  is  nothing  here  now  except  a 
faint  tradition  of  the  French  Acadians;  and  the 
sentimental  traveller  who  laments  that  they  were 
driven  out,  and  not  left  behind  their  dikes  to  rear 
their  flocks,  and  cultivate  the  rural  virtues,  and 
live  in  the  simplicity  of  ignorance,  will  temper  his 
sadness  by  the  reflection  that  it  is  to  the  expul- 
sion he  owes  "  Evangeline  "  and  the  luxury  of  his 
romantic  grief     So  that  if  the  traveller  is  honest, 
and  examines  his  own  soul  faithfully,  he  will  not 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  67 

know  what  state  of  mind  to  cherish  as  he  passes 
through  this  region  of  sorrow. 

Our  eyes  lingered  as  long  as  possible  and  with 
all  eagerness  upon  these  meadows  and  marshes 
which  the  poet  has  made  immortal,  and  we  regret- 
ted that  inexorable  Baddeck  would  not  permit  us 
to  be  pilgrims  for  a  day  in  this  Acadian  land. 
Just  as  I  was  losing  sight  of  the  skirt  of  trees  at 
Grand  Pre,  a  gentleman  in  the  dress  of  a  rural 
clergyman  left  his  seat,  and  complimented  me  with 
this  remark  :  "  I  perceive,  sir,  that  you  are  fond 
of  reading." 

I  could  not  but  feel  flattered  by  this  unexpected 
discovery  of  my  nature,  which  was  no  doubt  due 
to  the  fact  that  I  held  in  my  hand  one  of  the  works 
of  Charles  Reade  on  social  science,  called  "  Love 
me  Little,  Love  me  Long,"  and  I  said,  "  Of  some 
kinds,  I  am." 

"  Did  you  ever  see  a  work  called  ^Evangeline '  % " 
"  0,  yes,  I  have  frequently  seen  it." 
"You  may  remember,"  continued  this  Mass  of 
Information,   ''that  there   is  an  allusion  in  it  to 
Grand  Pr6.     That  is  the  place,  sir!" 


68  BAD  DECK, 


"0,  indeed,  is  that  the  place*?     Thank  you." 

"  And  that  mountain  yonder  is  Cape  Blomedon, 
—  blow  me  down,  you  know." 

And  under  cover  of  this  pun,  the  amiable  clergy- 
man retired,  unconscious,  I  presume,  of  his  prosaic 
effect  upon  the  atmosphere  of  the  region.  With 
this  intrusion  of  the  commonplace,  I  suffered  an 
eclipse  of  faith  as  to  Evangeline,  and  was  not  sorry 
to  have  my  attention  taken  up  by  the  river  Avon, 
along  the  banks  of  which  we  were  running  about 
this  time.  It  is  really  a  broad  arm  of  the  basin, 
extending  up  to  Windsor,  and  beyond  in  a  small 
stream,  and  would  have  been  a  charming  river  if 
there  had  been  a  drop  of  water  in  it.  I  never 
knew  before  how  much  water  adds  to  a  river.  Its 
slimy  bottom  was  quite  a  ghastly  spectacle,  an 
ugly  gash  in  the  land  that  nothing  could  heal  but 
the  friendly  returning  tide.  I  should  think  it 
would  be  confusing  to  dwell  by  a  river  that  runs 
first  one  way  and  then  the  other,  and  then  van- 
ishes altogether. 

All  the  streams  about  this  basin  are  famous  for 
their  salmon  and  shad,  and  the  season  for  these 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  69 

fish  was  not  yet  passed.  There  seems  to  be  an 
untraced  affinity  between  the  shad  and  the  straw- 
berry ;  they  appear  and  disappear  in  a  region  si- 
multaneously. When  we  reached  Cape  Breton,  we 
were  a  day  or  two  late  for  both.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  feel  a  little  contempt  for  people  who  do  not 
have  these  luxuries  till  July  and  August ;  but  I 
suppose  we  are  in  turn  despised  by  the  Southern- 
ers because  we  do  not  have  them  till  May  and 
June.  So,  a  great  part  of  the  enjoyment  of  life 
is  in  the  knowledge  that  there  are  people  living  in 
a  worse  place  than  that  you  inhabit. 

Windsor,  a  most  respectable  old  town  round 
which  the  railroad  sweeps,  with  its  iron  bridge, 
conspicuous  King's  College,  and  handsome  church 
spire,  is  a  great  place  for  plaster  and  limestone, 
and  would  be  a  good  location  for  a  person  interest- 
ed in  these  substances.  Indeed,  if  a  man  can  live 
on  rocks,  like  a  goat,  he  may  settle  anywhere 
between  Windsor  and  Halifax.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  sterile  regions  in  the  Province.  With  the 
exception  of  a  wild  pond  or  two,  we  saw  nothing 
but  rocks  and  stunted  firs,  for  forty-five  miles,  a 


70  BADDECK, 


monotony  unrelieved  by  one  picturesque  feature. 
Then  we  longed  for  the  "  Garden  of  Nova  Scotia," 
and  understood  what  is  meant  by  the  name. 

A  member  of  the  Ottawa  government,  who  was 
on  his  way  to  the  Governor-General's  ball  at  Hali- 
fax, informed  us  that  this  country  is  rich  in  min- 
erals, in  iron  especially,  and  he  pointed  out  spots 
where  gold  had  been  washed  out.  But  we  do  not 
covet  it.  And  we  were  not  sorry  to  learn  from 
this  gentleman,  that  since  the  formation  of  the 
Dominion,  there  is  less  and  less  desire  in  the  Prov- 
inces for  annexation  to  the  United  States.  One 
of  the  chief  pleasures  in  travelling  in  Nova  Scotia 
now  is  in  the  constant  reflection  that  you  are  in  a 
foreign  country ;  and  annexation  would  take  that 
away. 

It  is  nearly  dark  when  we  reach  the  head  of 
the  Bedford  Basin.  The  noble  harbor  of  Halifax 
narrows  to  a  deep  inlet  for  three  miles  along  the 
rocky  slope  on  which  the  city  stands,  and  then 
suddenly  expands  into  this  beautiful  sheet  of 
water.  We  ran  along  its  bank  for  five  miles, 
cheered  occasionally  by  a  twinkling  light  on  the 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  71 

shore,  and  then  came  to  a  stop  at  the  shabby  ter- 
minus, three  miles  out  of  town.  This  basin  is 
almost  large  enough  to  float  the  navy  of  Great 
Britain,  and  it  could  lie  here,  with  the  narrows 
fortified,  secure  from  the  attacks  of  the  American 
navy,  hovering  outside  in  the  fog.  With  these 
patriotic  thoughts  we  enter  the  town.  It  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  raihoad,  but  its  present  inability 
to  climb  a  rocky  hill,  that  it  does  not  run  into  the 
city.  The  suburbs  are  not  impressive  in  the 
night,  but  they  look  better  then  than  they  do  in 
the  daytime ;  and  the  same  might  be  said  of  the 
city  itself.  Probably  there  is  not  anywhere  a 
more  rusty,  forlorn  town,  and  this  in  spite  of  its 
magnificent  situation. 

It  is  a  gala-night  when  we  rattle  down  the 
rough  streets,  and  have  pointed  out  to  us  the 
sombre  government  buildings.  The  Halifax  Club 
House  is  a  blaze  of  light,  for  the  Governor-General 
is  being  received  there,  and  workmen  are  still 
busy  decorating  the  Provincial  Building  for,  the 
great  ball.  The  city  is  indeed  pervaded  by  his 
lordship,  and  we  regret  that  we  cannot  see  it  in 


72  BADDECK, 


its  normal  condition  of  quiet ;  the  hotels  are  full, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  escape  the  festive  feeling 
that  is  abroad.  It  ill  accords  with  our  desires, 
as  tranquil  travellers,  to  be  plunged  into  such  a 
vortex  of  slow  dissipation.  These  people  take 
their  pleasures  more  gi'avely  than  we  do,  and 
probably  will  last  the  longer  for  their  moderation. 
Having  ascertained  that  we  can  get  no  more  infor- 
mation about  Baddeck  here  than  in  St.  John,  we 
go  to  bed  early,  for  we  are  to  depart  from  this 
fascinating  place  at  six  o'clock. 

If  any  one  objects  that  we  are  not  competent 
to  pass  judgment  on  the  city  of  Halifax  by  sleeping 
there  one  night,  I  beg  leave  to  plead  the  usual 
custom  of  travellers,  —  where  would  be  our  books 
of  travel  if  more  was  expected  than  a  night  in  a 
place  %  —  and  to  state  a  few  facts.  The  first  is, 
that  I  saw  the  whole  of  Halifax.  If  I  were  in- 
clined, I  could  describe  it  building  by  building 
Cannot  one  see  it  all  from  the  citadel  hill,  and  by 
walking  down  by  the  horticultural  garden  and  the 
Roman  Catholic  cemetery  1  and  did  not  I  climb 
that  hill  through  the  most  dilapidated  rows  of 


AND   TEAT  SORT   OF   THING,  73 

brown  houses,  and  stand  on  the  greensward  of  the 
fortress  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  see 
the  whole  city,  and  the  British  navy  riding  at 
anchor,  and  the  fog  coming  in  from  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  %  Let  the  reader  go  to !  and  if  he  would 
know  more  of  Halifax,  go  there.  We  felt  that  if 
we  remained  there  through  the  day,  it  would  be 
a  day  of  idleness  and  sadness.  I  could  draw  a 
picture  of  Halifax.  I  could  relate  its  century 
of  history;  I  could  write  about  its  free-school 
system,  and  its  many  noble  charities.  But  the 
reader  always  skips  such  things.  He  hates  infor- 
mation; and  he  himself  would  not  stay  in  this 
dull  garrison  town  any  longer  than  he  was 
obliged  to. 

There  was  to  be  a  military  display  that  day  in 
honor  of  the  Governor. 

"Why,"  I  asked  the  bright  and  light-minded 
colored-  boy  who  sold  papers  on  the  morning  train, 
"  don't  you  stay  in  the  city  and  see  it  % " 

"Pho,"  said  he,  with  contempt,  "I'm  sick  of 
'em.  Halifax  is  played  out,  and  I'm  going  to 
quit  it." 

4 


74  BADDECK, 


The  withdrawal  of  this  lively  trader  will  be  a 
blow  to  the  enterprise  of  the  place. 

When  I  returned  to  the  hotel  for  breakfast  — 
which  was  exactly  like  the  supper,  and  consisted 
mainly  of  green  tea  and  dry  toast  —  there  was 
a  commotion  among  the  waiters  and  the  hack- 
drivers  over  a  nervous  little  old  man,  who  was  in 
haste  to  depart  for  the  morning  train.  He  was  a 
specimen  of  provincial  antiquity  such  as  could  not 
be  seen  elsewhere.  His  costume  was  of  the  odd- 
est :  a  long-waisted  coat  reaching  nearly  to  his 
heels,  short  trousers,  a  flowered  silk  vest,  and  a 
napless  hat.  He  carried  his  baggage  tied  up  in 
meal-bags,  and  his  attention  was  divided  between 
that  and  two  buxom  daughters,  who  were  evi- 
dently enjoying  their  first  taste  of  city  life.  The 
little  old  man,  who  was  not  unlike  a  petrified 
Frenchman  of  the  last  century,  had  risen  before 
daylight,  roused  up  his  daughters,  and  had  them 
down  on  the  sidewalk  by  four  o  'clock,  waiting  for 
hack,  or  horse-car,  or  something  to  take  them  to 
the  station.  That  he  might  be  a  man  of  some 
importance  at  home  was  evident,  but  he  had  lost 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  75 

his  head  in  the  bustle  of  this  great  town,  and  was 
at  the  mercy  of  all  advisers,  none  of  whom  could 
understand  his  mongrel  language.  As  we  came 
out  to  take  the  horse-car,  he  saw  his  helpless 
daughters  driven  off  in  one  hack,  while  he  was 
raving  among  his  meal-bags  on  the  sidewalk.  Af- 
terwards we  saw  him  at  the  station,  flying  about 
in  the  greatest  excitement,  asking  everybody 
about  the  train;  and  at  last  he  foand  his  way 
into  the  private  office  of  the  ticket-seller.  "  Get 
out  of  here,"  roared  that  official.  The  old  man 
persisted  that  he  wanted  a  ticket.  "Go  round  to 
the  window,  clear  out ! "  In  a  very  flustered  state 
he  was  hustled  out  of  the  room.  When  he  came 
to  the  window  and  made  known  his  destination, 
he  was  refused  tickets,  because  his  train  did  not 
start  for  two  hours  yet ! 

This  mercurial  old  gentleman  only  appears  in 
these  records  because  he  was  the  only  person  we 
saw  in  this  Province  who  was  in  a  hurry  to  do 
anything,  or  to  go  anywhere. 

We  cannot  leave  Halifax  without  remarking 
that  it  is  a  city  of  great  private  virtue,  and  that 


76  BADDECK, 


its  banks  are  sound.  The  appearance  of  its  paper- 
money  is  not,  however,  inviting.  We  of  the 
United  States  lead  the  world  in  beautiful  paper- 
money  ;  and  when  I  exchanged  my  crisp,  hand- 
some greenbacks  for  the  dirty,  flimsy,  ill-executed 
notes  of  the  Dominion,  at  a  dead  loss  of  value,  I 
could  not  be  reconciled  to  the  transaction.  I  sar- 
castically called  the  stuff  1  received  "  Confederate 
money " ;  but  probably  no  one  was  wounded  by 
the  severity ;  for  perhaps  no  one  knew  what  a  re- 
semblance in  badness  there  is  between  the  "  Con- 
federate "  notes  of  our  civil  war  and  the  notes  of 
the  Dominion ;  and,  besides,  the  Confederacy  was 
too  popular  in  the  Provinces  for  the  name  to  be  a 
reproach  to  them.  I  wish  I  had  thought  of  some- 
thing more  insulting  to  say. 

By  noon  on  Friday  we  came  to  New  Glasgow, 
having  passed  through  a  country  where  wealth  is 
to  be  won  by  hard  digging  if  it  is  won  at  all ; 
through  Truro,  at  the  head  of  the  Cobequid  Bay, 
a  place  exhibiting  more  thrift  than  any  we  have 
seen.  A  pleasant  enough  country,  on  the  whole, 
is  this  which  the  road  runs  through  up  the  Sal- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  77 

mon  and  down  the  East  River.  New  Glasgow  is 
not  many  miles  from  Pictou,  on  the  great  Cum- 
berland Strait ;  the  inhabitants  build  vessels,  and 
strangers  drive  out  from  here  to  see  the  neighbor- 
ing coal  mines.  Here  we  were  to  dine  and  take 
the  stage  for  a  ride  of  eighty  miles  to  the  Gut  of 
Canso. 

The  hotel  at  New  Glasgow  we  can  commend  as 
one  of  the  most  unwholesome  in  the  Province; 
but  it  is  unnecessary  to  emphasize  its  condition, 
for  if  the  traveller  is  in  search  of  dirty  hotels,  he 
will  scarcely  go  amiss  anywhere  in  these  regions. 
There  seems  to  be  a  fashion  in  diet  which  endures. 
The  early  travellers  as  well  as  the  later  in  these 
Atlantic  provinces  all  note  the  prevalence  of  dry, 
limp  toast  and  green  tea ;  they  are  the  staples  of 
all  the  meals ;  though  authorities  differ  in  regard 
to  the  third  element  for  discouraging  hunger :  it 
is  sometimes  boiled  salt-fish  and  sometimes  it  is 
ham.  Toast  was  probably  an  inspiration  of  the 
first  woman  of  this  part  of  the  New  World,  who 
served  it  hot ;  but  it  has  become  now  a  tradition 
blindly  followed,  without  regard  to  temperature; 


78  BADDECK, 


and  the  custom  speaks  volumes  for  the  non-in- 
ventiveness of  woman.  At  the  inn  in  New  Glas- 
gow those  who  choose  dine  in  their  shirt-sleeves, 
and  those  skilled  in  the  ways  of  this  table  get  all 
they  want  in  seven  minutes.  A  man  who  under- 
stands the  use  of  edged  tools  can  get  along  twice 
as  fe,st  with  a  knife  and  fork  as  he  can  with  a  fork 
alone. 

But  th&  stage  is  at  the  door ;  the  coach  and  four 
horses  answer  the  advertisement  of  being  "  second 
to  none  on  the  continent."  We  mount  to  the  seat 
with  the  driver.  The  sun  is  bright ;  the  wind  is 
in  the  southwest ;  the  leaders  are  impatient  to  go ; 
the  start  for  the  long  ride  is  propitious. 

But  on  the  back  seat  in  the  coach  is  the  inevi- 
table woman,  young  and  sickly,  with  the  baby  in 
her  arms.  The  woman  has  paid  her  fare  through 
to  Guysborough,  and  holds  her  ticket.  It  turns 
out,  however,  that  she  wants  to  go  to  the  district 
of  Guysborough,  to  St.  Mary's  Cross  Roads,  some- 
where in  it,  and  not  to  the  village  of  Guysborough, 
which  is  away  down  on  Chedabucto  Bay.  (The 
reader  will  notice  this  geographical  familiarity.) 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  79 

And  this  stage  does  not  go  in  the  direction  of  St. 
Mary's.  She  will  not  get  out,  she  will  not  surren- 
der her  ticket,  nor  pay  her  fare  again.  Why 
should  she  %  And  the  stage  proprietor,  the  stage- 
driver,  and  the  hostler  mull  over  the  problem, 
and  sit  down  on  the  woman's  hair-trunk  in  front 
of  the  tavern  to  reason  with  her.  The  baby  joins 
its  voice  from  the  coach-window  in  the  clamor  of 
the  discussion.  The  baby  prevails.  The  stage 
company  comes  to  a  compromise,  the  woman  dis- 
mounts, and  we  are  off,  away  from  the  white 
houses,  over  the  sandy  road,  out  upon  a  hilly  and 
not  cheerful  country.  And  the  driver  begins  to 
tell  us  stories  of  winter  hardships,  drifted  high- 
ways, a  land  buried  in  snow,  and  great  peril  to  men 
and  cattle. 


III. 


"  It  was  then  summer,  and  the  weather  very  fine  ;  so  pleased 
was  I  with  the  country,  in  which  I  had  never  travelled  before, 
that  my  delight  proved  equal  to  my  wonder." — Benvenuto 
Cellini. 


HERE  are  few  pleasures  in  life  equal  to 
that  of  riding  on  the  box-seat  of  a  stage- 
coach, through  a  country  unknown  to 
you,  and  hearing  the  driver  talk  about  his  horses. 
We  made  the  intimate  acquaintance  of  twelve 
horses  on  that  day's  ride,  and  learned  the  peculiar 
disposition  and  traits  of  each  one  of  them,  their 
ambition  of  display,  their  sensitiveness  to  praise 
or  blame,  their  faithfulness,  their  playfulness,  the 
readiness  with  which  they  yielded  to  kind  treat- 
ment, their  daintiness  about  food  and  lodging. 

May  I  never  forget  the  spirited  little  jade,  the 
off-leader  in  the  third  stage,  the  petted  belle  of 
the  route,  the  nervous,  coquettish,  mincing  mare 


BADDECK,   AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.     81 

of  Marshy  Hope.  A  spoiled  beauty  she  was ;  you 
could  see  tliat  as  she  took  the  road  with  dancing 
step,  tossing  her  pretty  head  about,  and  conscious 
of  her  shining  black  coat  and  her  tail  done  up  "in 
any  simple  knot,"  —  like  the  back  hair  of  Shelley's 
Beatrice  Cenci.  How  she  ambled  and  sidled  and 
plumed  herself,  and  now  and  then  let  fly  her  little 
heels  high  in  air  in  mere  excess  of  larkish  feeling. 

"  So  !  girl ;  so !  Kitty,"  murmurs  the  driver  in 
the  softest  tones  of  admiration;  "she  don't  mean 
anything  by  it,  she  's  just  like  a  kitten." 

But  the  heels  keep  flying  above  the  traces,  and 
by  and  by  the  driver  is  obliged  to  "speak  hash" 
to  the  beauty.  The  reproof  of  the  displeased  tone 
is  evidently  felt,  for  she  settles  at  once  to  her  work, 
showing  perhaps  a  little  impatience,  jerking  her 
head  up  and  down,  and  protesting  by  her  nimble 
movements  against  the  more  deliberate  trot  of  her 
companion.  I  believe  that  a  blow  from  the  cruel 
lash  would  have  broken  her  heart ;  or  else  it  would 
have  made  a  little  fiend  of  the  spirited  creature. 
The  lash  is  hardly  ever  good  for  the  sex. 

For  thirteen  years,  winter  and  summer,  this 
4*  F 


82  BADDECK, 


coachman  had  driven  this  monotonous,  uninterest- 
ing route,  with  always  the  same  sandy  hills,  scrub- 
by firs,  occasional  cabins,  in  sight.  What  a  time 
to  nurse  his  thought  and  feed  on  his  heart !  How 
deliberately  he  can  turn  things  over  in  his  brain  ! 
What  a  system  of  philosophy  he  might  evolve  out 
of  his  consciousness  !  One  would  think  so.  But, 
in  fact,  the  stage-box  is  no  place  for  thinking.  To 
handle  twelve  horses  every  day,  to  keep  each  to  its 
proper  work,  stimulating  the  lazy  and  restraining 
the  free,  humoring  each  disposition,  so  that  the 
greatest  amount  of  work  shall  be  obtained  with  the 
least  friction,  making  each  trip  on  time,  and  so  as 
to  leave  each  horse  in  as  good  condition  at  the 
close  as  at  the  start,  taking  advantage  of  the  road, 
refreshing  the  team  by  an  occasional  spurt  of 
speed,  —  all  these  things  require  constant  atten- 
tion ;  and  if  the  driver  was  composing  an  epic,  the 
coach  might  go  into  the  ditch,  or,  if  no  accident 
happened,  the  horses  would  be  worn  out  in  a 
month,  except  for  the  driver's  care. 

I  conclude  that  the  most  delicate  and  important 
occupation  in  life  is  stage-driving.     It  would  be 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  83 

easier  to  "run"  the  Treasury  Department  of  the 
United  States  than  a  four-in-hand.  I  have  a  sense 
of  the  unimportance  of  everything  else  in  compari- 
son with  this  business  in  hand.  And  I  think  the 
driver  shares  that  feeling.  He  is  the  autocrat  of 
the  situation.  He  is  lord  of  all  the  humble  pas- 
sengers, and  they  feel  their  inferiority.  They  may 
have  knowledge  and  skill  in  some  things,  but  they 
are  of  no  use  here.  At  all  the  stables  the  driver 
is  king  j  all  the  people  on  the  route  are  deferential 
to  him;  they  are  happy  if  he  will  crack  a  joke 
with  them,  and  take  it  as  a  favor  if  he  gives  them 
better  than  they  send.  And  it  is  his  joke  that 
always  raises  the  laugh,  regardless  of  its  quality. 

We  carry  the  royal  mail,  and  as  we  go  along 
drop  little  sealed  canvas  bags  at  way  offices.  The 
bags  would  not  hold  more  than  three  pints  of  meal, 
and  I  can  see  that  there  is  nothing  in  them.  Yet 
somebody  along  here  must  be  expecting  a  letter, 
or  they  would  not  keep  up  the  mail  facilities.  At 
French  River  we  change  horses.  There  is  a  mill 
here,  and  there  are  half  a  dozen  houses,  and  a 
cranky  bridge,  which  the  driver  thinks  will  not 


84  BADDECK, 


tumble  down  this  trip.     The  settlement  may  have 
seen  better  days,  and  will  probably  see  worse. 

I  preferred  to  cross  the  long  shaky  wooden  bridge 
on  foot,  leaving  the  inside  passengers  to  take  the 
risk,  and  get  the  worth  of  their  money ;  and  while 
the  horses  were  being  put  to,  I  walked  on  over  the 
hill.  And  here  I  encountered  a  veritable  foot-pad, 
with  a  club  in  his  hand  and  a  bundle  on  his  shoul- 
der, coming  down  the  dusty  road,  with  the  wild- 
eyed  aspect  of  one  who  travels  into  a  far  country 
in  search  of  adventure.  He  seemed  to  be  of  a 
cheerful  and  sociable  turn,  and  desired  that  I 
should  linger  and  converse  with  him.  But  he  was 
more  meagrely  supplied  with  the  media  of  conver- 
sation than  any  person  I  ever  met.  His  opening 
address  was  in  a  tongue  that  failed  to  convey  to 
me  the  least  idea.  I  replied  in  such  language  as 
I  had  with  me,  but  it  seemed  to  be  equally  lost 
upon  him.  We  then  fell  back  upon  gestures  and 
ejaculations,  and  by  these  I  learned  that  he  was  a 
native  of  Cape  Breton,  but  not  an  aborigine.  By 
signs  he  asked  me  where  I  came  from,  and  where 
I  was  going ;  and  he  was  so  much  pleased  with  my 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  85 

destination,  that  he  desired  to  know  ray  name; 
and  this  I  told  him  with  all  the  injunction  of 
secrecy  I  could  convey ;  but  he  could  no  more 
pronounce  it  than  I  could  speak  his  name.  It 
occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  he  spoke  a  French 
patois,  and  I  asked  him ;  but  he  only  shook  his 
head.  He  would  own  neither  to  German  nor  Irish. 
The  happy  thought  came  to  me  of  inquiring  if  he 
knew  English.  But  he  shook  his  head  again,  and 
said,  — 

"  No  English,  plenty  garlic." 

This  was  entirely  incomprehensible,  for  I  knew 
that  garlic  is  not  a  language,  but  a  smell.  But 
when  he  had  repeated  the  word  several  times,  I 
found  that  he  meant  Gaelic;  and  when  we  had 
come  to  this  understanding,  we  cordially  shook 
hands  and  willingly  parted.  One  seldom  encoun- 
ters a  wilder  or  more  good-natured  savage  than 
this  stalwart  wanderer.  And  meeting  him  raised 
my  hopes  of  Cape  Breton. 

We  change  horses  again,  for  the  last  stage,  at 
Marshy  Hope.  As  we  turn  down  the  hill  into  this 
place  of  the  mournful  name,  we  dash  past  a  pro- 


86  JBADDECK, 


cession  of  five  country  wagons,  which  makes  way 
for  us ;  everything  makes  way  for  us,  even  death 
itself  turns  out  for  the  stage  with  four  horses. 
The  second  wagon  carries  a  long  box,  which  reveals 
to  us  the  mournful  errand  of  the  caravan.  We 
drive  into  the  stable,  and  get  down  while  the  fresh 
horses  are  put  to.  The  company's  stables  are  all 
alike,  and  open  at  each  end  with  great  doors. 
The  stable  is  the  best  house  in  the  place ;  there 
are  three  or  four  houses  besides,  and  one  of  them 
is  white,  and  has  vines  growing  over  the  front  door, 
and  hollyhocks  by  the  front  gate.  Three  or  four 
women,  and  as  many  bare-legged  girls,  have  come 
out  to  look  at  the  procession,  and  we  lounge 
towards  the  group. 

"  It  had  a  winder  in  the  top  of  it,  and  silver 
handles,"  says  one. 

"  Well,  I  declare  ;  and  you  could  'a'  looked  right 
inl" 

"  If  I  'd  been  a  mind  to." 

"Who  has  died r'  I  ask. 

"  It 's  old  woman  Larue ;  she  lived  on  Gilead 
Hill,  mostly  alone.     It 's  better  for  her." 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  87 

"  Had  she  any  friends'?" 

"  One  darter.  They  're  takin'  her  over  Eden 
way,  to  bury  her  where  she  come  from." 

"Was  she  a  good  woman?"  The  traveller  is 
naturally  curious  to  know  what  sort  of  people  die 
in  Nova  Scotia. 

"Well,  good  enough.  Both  her  husbands  is 
dead." 

The  gossips  continued  talking  of  the  burying. 
Poor  old  woman  Larue  !  It  was  mournful  enough 
to  encounter  you  for  the  only  time  in  this  world 
in  this  plight,  and  to  have  this  glimpse  of  your 
wretched  life  on  lonesome  Gilead  Hill.  What 
pleasure,  I  wonder,  had  she  in  her  life,  and  what 
pleasure  have  any  of  these  hard-favored  women  in 
this  doleful  region'?  It  is  pitiful  to  think  of  it. 
Doubtless,  however,  the  region  is  n't  doleful,  and 
the  sentimental  traveller  would  not  have  felt  it  so 
if  he  had  not  encountered  this  funereal  flitting. 

But  the  horses  are  in.  We  mount  to  our 
places ;  the  big  doors  swing  open. 

"  Stand  away,"  cries  the  driver. 

The  hostler  lets  go    Kitty's  bridle,  the  horses 


88  BADDECK, 


plunge  forward,  and  we  are  off  at  a  gallop,  taking 
the  opposite  direction  from  that  pursued  by  old 
woman  Larue. 

This  last  stage  is  eleven  miles,  through  a  pleas- 
anter  country,  and  we  make  it  in  a  trifle  over  an 
hour,  going  at  an  exhilarating  gait,  that  raises  our 
spirits  out  of  the  Marshy  Hope  level.  The  perfec- 
tion of  travel  is  ten  miles  an  hour,  on  top  of  a 
stage-coach ;  it  is  greater  speed  than  forty  by  rail. 
It  nurses  one's  pride  to  sit  aloft,  and  rattle  past 
the  farm-houses,  and  give  our  dust  to  the  cringing 
foot  tramps.  There  is  something  royal  in  the  sway- 
ing of  the  coach  body,  and  an  excitement  in  the 
patter  of  the  horses'  hoofs.  And  what  an  honor 
it  must  be  to  guide  such  a  machine  through  a 
region  of  rustic  admiration ! 

The  sun  has  set  when  we  come  thundering  down 
into  the  pretty  Catholic  village  of  Antigonish,  — 
the  most  home-like  place  we  have  seen  on  the 
island.  The  twin  stone  towers  of  the  unfinished 
cathedral  loom  up  large  in  the  fading  light,  and 
the  bishop's  palace  on  the  hill  —  the  home  of  the 
Bishop   of  Arichat  —  appears  to  be  an  imposing 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  89 

white  barn  with  many  staring  windows.  At  An- 
tigomsA  —  with  the  emphasis  on  the  last  syllable 
—  let  the  reader  know  there  is  a  most  comfortable 
inn,  kept  by  a  cheery  landlady,  where  the  stranger 
is  served  by  the  comely  handmaidens,  her  daugh- 
ters, and  feels  that  he  has  reached  a  home  at  last. 
Here  we  wished  to  stay.  Here  we  wished  to  end 
this  weary  pilgrimage.  Could  Baddeck  be  as  at- 
tractive as  this  peaceful  valley  1  Should  we  find 
any  inn  on  Cape  Breton  like  this  one"? 

"  Never  was  on  Cape  Breton,"  our  driver  had 
said ;  "  hope  I  never  shall  be.  Heard  enough 
about  it.     Taverns  %    You  '11  find  'em  occupied." 

"  Fleas  1" 

"Wus." 

"  But  it  is  a  lovely  country  V 

*'  I  don't  think  it." 

Into  what  unknown  dangers  were  we  going] 
Why  not  stay  here  and  be  happy  ?  It  was  a  soft 
summer  night.  People  were  loitering  in  the  street  ] 
the  young  beaux  of  the  place  going  up  and  down 
with  the  belles,  after  the  leisurely  manner  in  youth 
and  summer ;  perhaps  they  were  students  from  St. 


90  BADDECK, 


Xavier  College,  or  visiting  gallants  from  Guysbor- 
ough.  They  look  into  the  post-office  and  the  fancy 
store.  They  stroll  and  take  their  little  provincial 
pleasure  and  make  love,  for  all  we  can  see,  as  if 
Antigonish  were  a  part  of  the  world.  How  they 
must  look  down  on  Marshy  Hope  and  Addington 
Forks  and  Tracadie  !  What  a  charming  place  to 
live  in  is  this  ! 

But  the  stage  goes  on  at  eight  o'clock.  It  will 
wait  for  no  man.  There  is  no  other  stage  till  eight 
the  next  night,  and  we  have  no  alternative  but  a 
night  ride.  We  put  aside  all  else  except  duty 
and  Baddeck.     This  is  strictly  a  pleasure  trip. 

The  stage  establishment  for  the  rest  of  the  jour- 
ney could  hardly  be  called  the  finest  on  the  conti- 
nent. The  wagon  was  drawn  by  two  horses.  It 
was  a  square  box,  covered  with  painted  cloth. 
Within  were  two  narrow  seats,  facing  each  other, 
affording  no  room  for  the  legs  of  passengers,  and 
offering  them  no  position  but  a  strictly  upright  one. 
It  was  a  most  ingeniously  uncomfortable  box  in 
which  to  put  sleepy  travellers  for  the  night.  The 
weather  would  be  chilly  before  morning,  and  to 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  91 

sit  upright  on  a  narrow  board  all  night,  and  shiver, 
is  not  cheerful.  Of  course,  the  reader  says  that 
this  is  no  hardship  to  talk  about.  But  the  reader 
is  mistaken.  Anything  is  a  hardship  when  it  is 
unpleasantly  what  one  does  not  desire  or  expect. 
These  travellers  had  spent  wakeful  nights  in  the 
forests,  in  a  cold  rain,  and  never  thought  of  com- 
plaining. It  is  useless  to  talk  about  the  Polar  suf- 
ferings of  Dr.  Kane  to  a  guest  at  a  metropolitan 
hotel,  in  the  midst  of  luxury,  when  the  mosquito 
sings  all  night  in  his  ear,  and  his  mutton-chop  is 
overdone  at  breakfast.  One  does  not  like  to  be 
set  up  for  a  hero  in  trifles,  in  odd  moments,  and 
in  inconspicuous  places. 

There  were  two  passengers  besides  ourselves,  in- 
habitants of  Cape  Breton  Island,  who  were  return- 
ing from  Halifax  to  Plaster  Cove,  where  they  were 
engaged  in  the  occupation  of  distributing  alcoholic 
liquors  at  retail.  This  fact  we  ascertained  incident- 
ally, as  we  learned  the  nationality  of  our  comrades 
by  their  brogue,  and  their  religion  by  their  lively 
ejaculations  during  the  night.  We  stowed  our- 
selves into  the  rigid  box,  bade  a  sorrowing  good 


92  BADDECK, 


night  to  the  landlady  and  her  daughters,  who 
Btood  at  the  inn  door,  and  went  jingling  down  the 
street  towards  the  open  country. 

The  moon  rises  at  eight  o'clock  in  Nova  Scotia. 
It  came  above  the  horizon  exactly  as  we  began  our 
journey,  a  harvest-moon,  round  and  red.  When 
I  first  saw  it,  it  lay  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon  as  if 
too  heavy  to  lift  itself,  as  big  as  a  cart-wheel,  and 
its  disk  cut  by  a  fence-rail.  With  what  a  flood  of 
splendor  it  deluged  farm-houses  and  farms,  and 
the  broad  sweep  of  level  country !  There  could 
not  be  a  more  magnificent  night  in  which  to  ride 
towards  that  geographical  mystery  of  our  boyhood, 
the  Gut  of  Canso. 

A  few  miles  out  of  town  the  stage  stopped  in 
the  road  before  a  post-station.  An  old  woman 
opened  the  door  of  the  farm-house  to  receive  the 
bag  which  the  driver  carried  to  her.  A  couple  of 
sprightly  little  girls  rushed  out  to  "  interview  "  the 
passengers,  climbing  up  to  ask  their  names  and, 
with  much  giggling,  to  get  a  peep  at  their  faces. 
And  upon  the  handsomeness  or  ugliness  of  the 
faces  they  saw  in  the  moonlight  they  pronounced 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  93 


with  perfect  candor.  We  are  not  obliged  to  say 
what  their  verdict  was.  Girls  here,  no  doubt,  as 
elsewhere,  lose  this  trustful  candor  as  they  grow 
older. 

Just    as    we    were    starting,    the    old    woman 
screamed  out  from  the  door,  in  a  shrill  voice,  ad- 
dressing the  driver,  "  Did  you  see  ary  a  sick  man 
'bout 'Tigonish]" 
"  Nary." 

"  There  's  one  been  round  here  for  three  or  four 
days,  pretty  bad  off;  's  got  the  St.  Vitus's.     He 
wanted  me  to  get  him  some  medicine  for  it  up  to' 
Antigonish.     I've    got   it   here   in  a  vial,  and  I 
wished  you  could  take  it  to  him." 
"Where  is  he  1" 

"  I  dunno.     I  heem  he  'd  gone  east  by  the  Gut. 
Perhaps  you  '11  hear  of  him."     All  this  screamed 
out  into  the  night. 
"Well,  I'll  take  it." 

We  took  the  vial  aboard  and  went  on ;  but  the 
incident  powerfully  affected  us.  The  weird  voice 
of  the  old  woman  was  exciting  in  itself,  and  we 
could  not  escape  the  image  of  this  unknown  man, 


94  BADDECK, 


dancing  about  this  region  without  any  medicine, 
fleeing  perchance  by  night  and  alone,  and  finally 
flitting  away  down  the  Gut  of  Canso.  This  fugi- 
tive mystery  almost  immediately  shaped  itself  into 
the  following  simple  poem  :  — 

"  There  was  an  old  man  of  Canso, 
Unable  to  sit  or  stan'  so. 
Wlien  I  asked  him  why  he  ran  so, 
Says  he,  '  I  've  St.  Vitus'  dance  so. 
All  down  the  Gut  of  Canso.' " 

This  melancholy  song  is  now,  I  doubt  not,  sung 
'  by  the  maidens  of  Antigonish. 

In  spite  of  the  consolations  of  poetry,  however, 
the  night  wore  on  slowly,  and  soothing  sleep  tried 
in  vain  to  get  a  lodgment  in  the  jolting  wagon. 
One  can  sleep  upright,  but  not  when  his  head  is 
every  moment  knocked  against  the  framework  of 
a  wagon-cover.  Even  a  jolly  young  Irishman  of 
Plaster  Cove,  whose  nature  it  is  to  sleep  under 
whatever  discouragement,  is  beaten  by  these  cir- 
cumstances. He  wishes  he  had  his  fiddle  along. 
We  never  know  what  men  are  on  casual  acquaint- 
ance.    This  rather  stupid  looking  fellow  is  a  devo- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  95 

tee  of  music,  and  knows  how  to  coax  the  sweetness 
out  of  the  unwilling  violin.  Sometimes  he  goes 
miles  and  miles  on  winter  nights  to  draw  the  se- 
ductive bow  for  the  Cape  Breton  dancers,  and  there 
is  enthusiasm  in  his  voice,  as  he  relates  exploits  of 
fiddling  from  sunset  till  the  dawn  of  day.  Other 
information,  however,  the  young  man  has  not ;  and 
when  this  is  exhausted,  he  becomes  sleepy  again, 
and  tries  a  dozen  ways  to  twist  himself  into  a  pos- 
ture in  which  sleep  will  be  possible.  He  doubles 
up  his  legs,  he  slides  them  under  the  seat,  he  sits 
on  the  wagon  bottom ;  but  the  wagon  swings  and 
jolts  and  knocks  him  about.  His  patience  under 
this  punishment  is  admirable,  and  there  is  some- 
thing pathetic  in  his  restraint  from  profanity. 

It  is  enough  to  look  out  upon  the  magnificent 
night ;  the  moon  is  now  high,  and  swinging  clear 
and  distant ;  the  air  has  gTown  chilly ;  the  stars 
cannot  be  eclipsed  by  the  greater  light,  but  glow 
with  a  chastened  fervor.  It  is  on  the  whole  a 
splendid  display  for  the  sake  of  four  sleepy  men, 
banging  along  in  a  coach,  —  an  insignificant  little 
vehicle  with  two  horses.     No  one  is  up  at  any  of 


96  BAD  DECK, 


the  farm-houses  to  see  it ;  no  one  appears  to  take 
any  interest  in  it,  except  an  occasional  baying  dog, 
or  a  rooster  that  has  mistaken  the  time  of  night. 
By  midnight  we  come  to  Tracadie,  an  orchard,  a 
farm-house,  and  a  stable.  We  are  not  far  from 
the  sea  now,  and  can  see  a  silver  mist  in  the  north. 
An  inlet  comes  lapping  up  by  the  old  house  with  a 
salty  smell  and  a  suggestion  of  oyster-beds.  We 
knock  up  the  sleeping  hostlers,  change  horses,  and 
go  on  again,  dead  sleepy,  but  unable  to  get  a  wink. 
And  all  the  night  is  blazing  with  beauty.  We 
think  of  the  criminal  who  was  sentenced  to  be 
kept  awake  till  he  died. 

The  fiddler  makes  another  trial.  Temperately 
remarking,  "  I  am  very  sleepy,"  he  kneels  upon 
the  floor  and  rests  his  head  on  the  seat.  This  posi- 
tion for  a  second  promises  repose  ;  but  almost  im- 
mediately his  head  begins  to  pound  the  seat,  and 
beat  a  lively  rat-a-plan  on  the  board.  The  head 
of  a  wooden  idol  could  n't  stand  this  treatment 
more  than  a  minute.  The  fiddler  twisted  and 
turned,  but  his  head  went  like  a  trip-hammer  on 
the  seat.     I  have  never  seen  a  devotional  attitude 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  97 

SO  deceptive,  or  one  that  produced  less  favorable 
results.  The  young  man  rose  from  his  knees, 
and  meekly  said,  — 

"  It 's  dam  hard." 

If  the  recording  angel  took  down  this  observa- 
tion, he  doubtless  made  a  note  of  the  injured  tone 
in  which  it  was  uttered. 

How  slowly  the  night  passes  to  one  tipping  and 
swinging  along  in  a  slowly  moving  stage  !  But 
the  harbinger  of  the  day  came  at  last.  When  the 
fiddler  rose  from  his  knees,  I  saw  the  morning-star 
burst  out  of  the  east  like  a  great  diamond,  and  I 
knew  that  Venus  was  strong  enough  to  pull  up 
even  the  sun,  from  whom  she  is  never  distant  more 
than  an  eighth  of  the  heavenly  circle.  The  moon 
could  not  put  her  out  of  countenance.  She  blazed 
and  scintillated  with  a  dazzling  brilliance,  a  throb- 
bing splendor,  that  made  the  moon  seem  a  pale, 
sentimental  invention.  Steadily  she  mounted,  in 
her  fresh  beauty,  with  the  confidence  and  vigor  of 
new  love,  driving  her  more  domestic  rival  out  of 
the  sky.  And  this  sort  of  thing,  I  suppose,  goes 
on  frequently.     These   splendors  bum   and  this 


98  BADDECK, 


panorama  passes  night  after  night  down  at  the  end 
of  Nova  Scotia,  and  all  for  the  stage-driver,  dozing 
along  on  his  box,  from  Antigonish  to  the  Strait. 

*'Here  yoii  are,"  cries  the  driver,  at  length, 
when  we  have  become  wearily  indifferent  to  where 
we  are.  We  have  reached  the  ferry.  The  dawn 
has  not  come,  but  it  is  not  far  off.  We  step  out 
and  find  a  chilly  morning,  and  the  dark  waters  of 
the  Gut  of  Canso  flowing  before  us,  lighted  here 
and  there  by  a  patch  of  white  mist.  The  ferry- 
man is  asleep,  and  his  door  is  shut.  We  call  him 
by  all  the  names  kuoAvn  among  men.  We  pound 
upon  his  house,  but  he  makes  no  sign.  Before  he 
awakes  and  comes  out,  gi'owling,  the  sky  in  the 
east  is  lightened  a  shade,  and  the  star  of  the  dawn 
sparkles  less  brilliantly.  But  the  process  is  slow. 
The  twilight  is  long.  There  is  a  surprising  de- 
liberation about  the  preparation  of  the  sun  for 
rising,  as  there  is  in  the  movements  of  the  boat- 
man. Both  appear  to  be  reluctant  to  begin  the 
day. 

The  ferryman  and  his  shaggy  comrade  get 
ready  at  last,  and  we  step  into  the  clumsy  yawl, 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  99 

and  the  slowly  moving  oars  begin  to  pull  us  up 
stream.  The  strait  is  here  less  than  a  mile  wide ; 
the  tide  is  running  strongly,  and  the  water  is  full 
of  swirls,  —  the  little  whirlpools  of  the  rip-tide. 
The  morning-star  is  now  high  in  the  sky ;  the 
moon,  declining  in  the  west,  is  more  than  ever 
like  a  silver  shield ;  along  the  east  is  a  faint  flush 
of  pink.  In  the  increasing  light  we  can  see  the 
bold  shores  of  the  strait,  and  the  square  projec- 
tion of  Cape  Porcupine  below. 

On  the  rocks  above  the  town  of  Plaster  Cove, 
where  there  is  a  black  and  white  sign,  —  Tele- 
graph Cable,  —  we  set  ashore  our  companions  of 
the  night,  and  see  them  climb  up  to  their  station 
for  retailing  the  necessary  means  of  intoxication 
in  their  district,  with  the  mournful  thought  that 
we  may  never  behold  them  again. 

As  we  drop  down  along  the  shore,  there  is  a  white 
sea-gull  asleep  on  the  rock,  rolled  up  in  a  ball, 
with  his  head  under  his  wing.  The  rock  is  drip- 
ping with  dew,  and  the  bird  is  as  wet  as  his  hard 
bed.  We  pass  within  an  oar's  length  of  him,  but 
he  does  not  heed  us,  and  we  do  not  disturb  his 


100  BADDECK, 


morning  slumbers.  For  there  is  no  such  cruelty 
as  the  waking  of  anybody  out  of  a  morning  nap. 

When  we  land,  and  take  up  our  bags  to  ascend 
the  hill  to  the  white  tavern  of  Port  Hastings  (as 
Plaster  Cove  now  likes  to  be  called),  the  sun  lifts 
himself  slowly  over  the  tree-tops,  and  the  magic 
of  the  night  vanishes. 

And  this  is  Cape  Breton,  reached  after  almost 
a  week  of  travel.  Here  is  the  Gut  of  Canso,  but 
where  is  Baddeck"?  It  is  Saturday  morning;  if 
we  cannot  make  Baddeck  by  night,  we  might  as 
well  have  remained  in  Boston.  And  who  knows 
what  we  shall  find  if  we  get  there?  A  forlorn 
fishing-station,  a  dreary  hotel  ]  Suppose  we  can- 
not get  on,  and  are  forced  to  stay  here  1  Asking 
ourselves  these  questions,  we  enter  the  Plaster 
Cove  tavern.  No  one  is  stirring,  but  the  house  la 
open,  and  we  take  possession  of  the  dirty  public 
room,  and  almost  immediately  drop  to  sleep  in 
the  fluffy  rocking-chairs;  but  even  sleep  is  not 
strong  enough  to  conquer  our  desire  to  push  on, 
and  we  soon  rouse  up  and  go  in  pursuit  of  infor- 
mation. 


AND  THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  101 

No  landlord  is  to  be  found,  but  there  is  an  un- 
kempt servant  in  the  kitchen,  who  probably  does 
not  see  any  use  in  making  her  toilet  more  than 
once  a  week.  To  this  fearful  creature  is  intrusted 
the  dainty  duty  of  prepairing  breakfast.  Her  in- 
difference is  equal  to  her  lack  of  information,  and 
her  ability  to  convey  mformation  is  fettered  by 
her  use  of  Gaelic  as  her  native  speech.  But  she 
directs  us  to  the  stable.  There  we  find  a  driver 
2iitching  his  horses  to  a  two-horse  stage-wagon. 

" Is  this  stage  for  Baddeck ?" 

"  Not  znuch." 

"Is  there  any  stage  for  Baddeckl" 

"Not  to-day." 

"  Where  does  this  go,  and  when  1  '* 

"  St.  Peter's.     Starts  in  fifteen  minutes." 

This  seems  like  "business,"  and  we  are  inclined 
%o  try  it,  especially  as  we  have  no  notion  where 
St.  Peter's  is. 

"  Does  any  other  stage  go  from  here  to-day  any- 
where else  *? " 

"Yes.     Port  Hood.     Quarter  of  an  hour." 

Everything  was  about  to  happen  in  fifteen  min- 


102  BADBECK, 


iites.  We  inquire  further.  St.  Peter's  is  on  the 
east  coast,  on  the  road  to  Sydney.  Port  Hood  is 
on  the  west  coast.  There  is  a  stage  from  Port 
Hood  to  Baddeck.  It  would  land  us  there  some- 
time Sunday  morning ;  distance,  eighty  miles. 

Heavens  !  what  a  pleasure-trip.  To  ride  eighty 
miles  more  without  sleep  !  We  should  simply  be 
delivered  dead  on  the  Bras  d'Or  ;  that  is  all.  Tell 
us,  gentle  driver,  is  there  no  other  way  1 

"  Well,  there  's  Jim  Hughes,  come  over  at  mid- 
night with  a  passenger  from  Baddeck ;  he  's  in  the 
hotel  now ;  perhaps  he  '11  take  you." 

Our  hope  hung  on  Jim  Hughes.  The  frowzy 
servant  piloted  us  up  to  his  sleeping-room.  "  Go 
right  in,"  said  she ;  and  we  went  in,  according  to 
the  simple  custom  of  the  country,  though  it  was  a 
bedroom  that  one  would  not  enter  except  on  busi- 
ness. Mr.  Hughes  did  not  like  to  be  disturbed, 
but  he  proved  himself  to  be  a  man  who  could  wake 
up  suddenly,  shake  his  head,  and  transact  business, 
—  a  sort  of  Napoleon,  in  fact.  Mr.  Hughes  stared 
at  the  intruders  for  a  moment,  as  if  he  meditated 
an  assault. 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  103 

"  Do  you  live  in  Baddeck  1 "  we  asked. 
"  No  j  Hogamah,  —  half-way  there." 
"  Will  you  take  us  to  Baddeck  to-day  1 " 
Mr.  Hughes  thought.     He  had  intended  to  sleep 
till  noon.     He  had  then  intended  to  go  over  the 
Judique    Mountain   and  get  a  boy.     But  he  was 
disposed  to  accommodate.     Yes,  for  money  —  sum 
named  —  he  would  give  up  his  plans,  and  start 
for   Baddeck  in  an  hour.     Distance,  sixty  miles. 
Here  was  a  man  worth  having ;  he  could  come  to 
a  decision  before  he  was  out  of  bed.     The  bargain 
was  closed. 

We  would  have  closed  any  bargain  to  escape  a 
Sunday  in  the  Plaster  Cove  hotel.  There  are  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  hotel  uncleanliness.  There  is  the 
musty  old  inn,  where  the  dirt  has  accumulated  for 
years,  and  slow  neglect  has  wrought  a  picturesque 
sort  of  dilapidation,  the  mouldiness  of  time,  which 
has  something  to  recommend  it.  But  there  is 
nothing  attractive  in  new  nastiness,  in  the  vulgar 
union  of  smartness  and  filth.  A  dirty  modem 
house,  just  built,  a  house  smelling  of  poor  whiskey 
and  vile  tobacco,  its  white  paint  grimy,  its  floors 


104  BADDECK, 


unclean,  is  ever  so  much  worse  than  an  old  inn  that 
never  pretended  to  be  anything  but  a  rookery.  I 
say  nothing  against  the  hotel  at  Plaster  Cove.  In 
fact,  I  recommend  it.  There  is  a  kind  of  harmony 
about  it  that  I  like.  There  is  a  harmony  between 
the  breakfast  and  the  frowzy  Gaelic  cook  we  saw 
"  sozzhng  "  about  in  the  kitchen.  There  is  a  har- 
mony between  the  appearance  of  the  house  and 
the  appearance  of  the  buxom  young  housekeeper 
who  comes  upon  the  scene  later,  her  hair  saturated 
with  the  fatty  matter  of  the  bear.  The  traveller 
will  experience  a  pleasure  in  paying  his  bill  and 
departing. 

Although  Plaster  Cove  seems  remote  on  the 
map,  we  found  that  we  were  right  in  the  track  of 
the  world's  news  there.  It  is  the  transfer  station 
of  the  Atlantic  Cable  Company,  where  it  exchanges 
messages  with  the  Western  Union.  In  a  long 
wooden  building,  divided  into  two  main  apartments, 
are  twenty  to  thirty  operators  employed.  At  eight 
o'clock  the  English  force  w^as  at  work  receiving 
the  noon  messages  from  London.  The  American 
operators   had  not  yet  come   on,  for  New  York 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  105 

business  would  not  begin  for  an  hour.  Into  these 
rooms  is  poured  daily  the  news  of  the  world,  and 
these  young  fellows  toss  it  about  as  lightly  as  if  it 
were  household  gossip.  It  is  a  marvellous  exchange, 
however,  and  we  had  intended  to  make  some  re- 
flections here  upon  the  en  rapport  feeling,  so  to 
speak,  with  all  the  world,  which  we  experienced 
while  there ;  but  our  conveyance  was  waiting. 
We  telegraphed  our  coming  to  Baddeck,  and  de- 
parted. For  twenty-five  cents  one  can  send  a 
despatch  to  any  part  of  the  Dominion,  except  the 
region  where  the  Western  Union  has  still  a  foot- 
hold. 

Our  conveyance  was  a  one-horse  wagon,  with 
one  seat.  The  horse  was  well  enough,  but  the 
seat  was  narrow  for  three  people,  and  the  entire 
establishment  had  in  it  not  much  prophecy  of 
Baddeck  for  that  day.  But  we  knew  little  of  the 
power  of  Cape  Breton  driving.  It  became  evident 
that  we  should  reach  Baddeck  soon  enough  if  we 
could  cling  to  that  wagon-seat.  The  morning  sun 
was  hot.  The  way  was  so  uninteresting  that  we 
almost  wished  ourselves  back  in  Nova  Scotia.  The 
5* 


106  BADDECK, 


sandy  road  was  bordered  with  discouraged  ever- 
greens, through  which  we  had  glimpses  of  sand- 
drifted  farms.  If  Baddeck  was  to  be  hke  this,  we 
had  come  on  a  fool's  errand.  There  were  some 
savage,  low  hills,  and  the  Judique  Mountain  showed 
itself  as  we  got  away  from  the  town.  In  this  first 
stage,  the  heat  of  the  sun,  the  monotony  of  the 
road,  and  the  scarcity  of  sleep  during  the  past 
thirty-six  hours,  were  all  unfavorable  to  our  keep- 
ing on  the  wagon-seat.  We  nodded  separately, 
we  nodded  and  reeled  in  unison.  But  asleep  or 
awake,  the  driver  drove  like  a  son  of  Jehu.  Such 
driving  is  the  fashion  on  Cape  Breton  Island. 
Especially  down  hill,  we  made  the  most  of  it ;  if 
the  horse  was  on  a  run,  that  was  only  an  induce- 
ment to  apply  the  lash ;  speed  gave  the  promise 
of  greater  possible  speed.  The  wagon  rattled  like 
a  bark-mill ;  it  swirled  and  leaped  about,  and  we 
finally  got  the  exciting  impression  that  if  the  whole 
thing  went  to  pieces,  we  should  somehow  go  on,  — 
such  was  our  impetus.  Round  corners,  over  ruts 
and  stones,  and  up  hill  and  down,  we  went  jolting 
and  swinging,  holding  fast  to  the  seat,  and  putting 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  107 

our  trust  in  things  in  general.  At  the  end  of  fif- 
teen miles,  we  stopped  at  a  Scotch  farm-house, 
where  the  driver  kept  a  relay,  and  changed  horse. 
The  people  were  Highlanders,  and  spoke  little 
English;  we  had  struck  the  beginning  of  the  Gaelic 
settlement.  From  here  to  Hogamah  we  should 
encounter  only  the  Gaelic  tongue ;  the  inhabitants 
are  all  Catholics.  Very  civil  people  apparently, 
and  living  in  a  kind  of  niggardly  thrift,  such  as 
the  cold  land  affords.  We  saw  of  this  family  the 
old  man,  who  had  come  from  Scotland  fifty  years 
ago,  his  stalwart  son,  six  feet  and  a  half  high, 
maybe,  and  two  buxom  daughters,  going  to  the 
hay-field,  —  good  solid  Scotch  lassies,  who  smiled 
in  English,  but  spoke  only  Gaelic.  The  old  man 
could  speak  a  little  English,  and  was  disposed  to 
be  both  communicative  and  inquisitive.  He  asked 
our  business,  names,  and  residence.  Of  the  United 
States  he  had  only  a  dim  conception,  but  his  mind 
rather  rested  upon  the  statement  that  we  lived 
"  near  Boston."  He  complained  of  the  degeneracy 
of  the  times.  All  the  young  men  had  gone  away 
from  Cape  Breton ;  might  get  rich  if  they  would 


108  BADDECK, 


stay  and  work  the  farms.  But  no  one  liked  to 
work  nowadays.  From  life,  we  diverted  the  talk 
to  literature.     We  inquired  what  books  they  had. 

"  Of  course  you  all  have  the  poems  of  Burns  1 " 

"  What 's  the  name  o'  the  mon  I " 

"  Burns,  Robert  Burns." 

"  Never  heerd  tell  of  such  a  mon.  Have  heard 
of  Robert  Bruce.     He  was  a  Scotchman." 

This  was  nothing  short  of  refreshing,  to  find  a 
Scotchman  who  had  never  heard  of  Robert  Burns  ! 
It  was  worth  the  whole  journey  to  take  this  honest 
man  by  the  hand.  How  far  would  I  not  travel  to 
talk  with  an  American  who  had  never  heard  of 
George  Washington ! 

The  way  was  more  varied  during  the  next  stage ; 
we  passed  through  some  pleasant  valleys  and  pic- 
turesque neighborhoods,  and  at  length,  winding 
around  the  base  of  a  wooded  range,  and  crossing 
its  point,  we  came  upon  a  sight  that  took  all  the 
sleep  out  of  us.     This  was  the  famous  Bras  d'Or. 

The  Bras  d'Or  is  the  most  beautiful  salt-water 
lake  I  have  ever  seen,  and  more  beautiful  than  we 
had  imagined  a  body  of  salt  water  could  be.     If 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  109 

the  reader  will  take  the  map,  he  will  see  that  two 
narrow  estuaries,  the  Great  and  the  Little  Bras 
d'Or,  enter  the  island  of  Cape  Breton,  on  the  ragged 
northeast  coast,  above  the  town  of  Sydney,  and 
flow  in,  at  length  widening  out  and  occupying  the 
heart  of  the  island.  The  water  seeks  out  all  the 
low  places,  and  ramifies  the  interior,  running  away 
into  lovely  bays  and  lagoons,  leaving  slender 
tongues  of  land  and  picturesque  islands,  and  bring- 
ing into  the  recesses  of  the  land,  to  the  remote 
country  farms  and  settlements,  the  flavor  of  salt, 
and  the  fish  and  moUusks  of  the  briny  sea.  There 
is  very  little  tide  at  any  time,  so  that  the  shores 
are  clean  and  sightly  for  the  most  part,  like  those 
of  fresh-water  lakes.  It  has  all  the  pleasantness 
of  a  fresh-water  lake,  with  all  the  advantages  of  a 
salt  one.  In  the  streams  which  run  into  it  are  the 
speckled  trout,  the  shad,  and  the  salmon ;  out  of 
its  depths  are  hooked  the  cod  and  the  mackerel, 
and  in  its  bays  fattens  the  oyster.  This  irregular 
lake  is  about  a  hundred  miles  long,  if  you  meas- 
ure it  skilfully,  and  in  some  places  ten  miles  broad ; 
but  so  indented  is  it,  that  I  am  not  sure  but  one 


110  BADDECK, 


would  need,  as  we  were  informed,  to  ride  a  thou- 
sand miles  to  go  round  it,  following  all  its  incur- 
sions into  the  land.  The  hills  about  it  are  never 
more  than  five  or  six  hundred  feet  high,  but  they 
are  high  enough  for  reposeful  beauty,  and  offer 
everywhere  pleasing  lines. 

What  we  first  saw  was  an  inlet  of  the  Bras 
d'Or,  called,  by  the  driver,  Hogamah  Bay.  At  its 
entrance  were  long,  wooded  islands,  beyond  which 
we  saw  the  backs  of  graceful  hills,  like  the  capes 
of  some  poetic  sea-coast.  The  bay  narrowed  to  a 
mile  in  width  where  we  came  upon  it,  and  ran 
several  miles  inland  to  a  swamp,  round  the  head 
of  which  we  must  go.  Opposite  was  the  village 
of  Hogamah.  I  had  my  suspicions  from  the  be- 
ginning about  this  name,  and  now  asked  the  dri- 
ver, who  was  liberally  educated  for  a  driver,  how 
he  spelled  "  Hogamah." 

"  Why-ko-ko-magh.     Hogamah." 

Sometimes  it  is  called  Wykogamah.  Thus  the 
innocent  traveller  is  misled.  Along  the  Whyko- 
komagh  Bay  we  come  to  a  permanent  encampment 
of  the  Micmac  Indians,  —  a  dozen  wigwams  in  the 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  Ill 


pine  woods.  Though  lumber  is  plenty,  they  refuse 
to  live  in  houses.  The  wigwams,  however,  are 
more  picturesque  than  the  square  frame  houses  of 
the  whites.  Built  up  conically  of  poles,  with  a 
hole  in  the  top  for  the  smoke  to  escape,  and  often 
set  up  a  little  from  the  ground  on  a  timber 
foundation,  they  are  as  pleasing  to  the  eye  as 
a  Chinese  or  Turkish  dwelling.  They  may  be 
cold  in  winter,  but  blessed  be  the  tenacity  of  bar- 
barism, which  retains  this  agreeable  architecture. 
The  men  live  by  hunting  in  the  season,  and  the 
women  support  the  fomily  by  making  moccasins 
and  baskets.  These  Indians  are  most  of  them  good 
Catholics,  and  they  try  to  go  once  a  year  to  mass 
and  a  sort  of  religious  festival  held  at  St.  Peter's, 
where  their  sins  are  forgiven  in  a  yearly  lump. 

At  Whykokomagh,  a  neat  fishing  village  of  white 
houses,  we  stopped  for  dinner  at  the  Inverness 
House.  The  house  was  very  clean,  and  the  tidy 
landlady  gave  us  as  good  a  dinner  as  she  could  of 
the  inevitable  green  tea,  toast,  and  salt  fish.  She 
was  Gaelic,  but  Protestant,  as  the  village  is,  and 
showed  us  with  pride  her  Gaelic  Bible  and  hymn- 


112  BADDECK, 


book.  A  peaceful  place,  this  Whykokomagh  ;  the 
lapsing  waters  of  Bras  d'Or  made  a  summer  music 
all  along  the  quiet  street ;  the  bay  lay  smiling 
with  its  islands  in  front,  and  an  amphitheatre  of 
hills  rose  behind.  But  for  the  line  of  telegraph 
poles  one  might  have  fancied  he  could  have  se- 
curity and  repose  here. 

We  put  a  fresh  pony  into  the  shafts,  a  beast 
born  with  an  everlasting  uneasiness  in  his  legs, 
and  an  amount  of  "go  "  in  him  which  suited  his 
reckless  driver.  We  no  longer  stood  upon  the 
order  of  our  going ;  we  went.  As  we  left  the 
village  we  passed  a  rocky  hay-field,  where  the 
Gaelic  farmer  was  gathering  the  scanty  yield  of 
grass.  A  comely  Indian  girl  was  stowing  the  hay 
and  treading  it  down  on  the  wagon.  The  driver 
hailed  the  farmer,  and  they  exchanged  Gaelic  rep- 
artee which  set  all  the  hay-makers  in  a  roar,  and 
caused  the  Indian  maid  to  darkly  and  sweetly 
beam  upon  us.  We  asked  the  driver  what  he  had 
Baid.  He  had  only  inquired  what  the  man  would 
take  for  the  load  as  it  stood !  A  joke  is  a  joke 
down  this  way. 


AND   TEAT  SORT  OF   THING.  113 


I  am  not  about  to  describe  this  drive  at  length, 
in  order  that  the  reader  may  skip  it ;  for  I  know 
the  reader,  being  of  like  passion  and  fashion  with 
him.  From  the  time  we  first  struck  the  Bras  d'Or 
for  thirty  miles  we  rode  in  constant  sight  of  its 
magnificent  water.  Now  we  were  two  hundred 
feet  above  the  water,  on  the  hillside,  skirting  a 
point  or  following  an  indentation ;  and  now  we 
were  diving  into  a  narrow  valley,  crossing  a  stream, 
or  turning  a  sharp  corner,  but  always  with  the  Bras 
d'Or  in  view,  the  afternoon  sun  shining  on  it,  soft- 
ening the  outlines  of  its  embracing  hills,  casting  a 
shadow  from  its  wooded  islands.  Sometimes  we 
opened  on  a  broad  water  plain  bounded  by  the 
Watchabaktchkt  hills,  and  again  we  looked  over 
hill  after  hill  receding  into  the  soft  and  hazy  blue 
of  the  land  beyond  the  great  mass  of  the  Bras 
d'Or.  The  reader  can  compare  the  view  and  the 
ride  to  the  Bay  of  Naples  and  the  Cornice  Road  ; 
we  did  nothing  of  the  sort;  we  held  on  to  the 
seat,  prayed  that  the  harness  of  the  pony  might 
not  break,  and  gave  constant  expression  to  our 
wonder  and  delight.     For  a  week  we  had  schooled 


114  BADDECK, 


ourselves  to  expect  nothing  more  of  this  wicked 
world,  but  here  was  an  enchanting  vision. 

The  only  phenomenon  worthy  the  attention  of 
any  inquiring  mind,  in  this  whole  record,  I  will 
now  describe.  As  we  drove  along  the  side  of  a  hill, 
and  at  least  two  hundred  feet  above  the  water, 
the  road  suddenly  diverged  and  took  a  circuit 
higher  up.  The  driver  said  that  was  to  avoid  a 
sink-hole  in  the  old  road,  —  a  great  curiosity, 
which  it  was  worth  while  to  examine.  Beside  the 
old  road  was  a  circular  hole,  which  nipped  out  a 
part  of  the  road-bed,  some  twenty-five  feet  in  di- 
ameter, filled  with  water  almost  to  the  brim,  but 
not  running  over.  The  water  was  dark  in  color, 
and  I  fancied  had  a  brackish  taste.  The  driver 
said  that  a  few  weeks  before,  when  he  came  this 
way,  it  was  solid  ground  where  this  well  now 
opened,  and  that  a  large  beech-tree  stood  there. 
When  he  returned  next  day,  he  found  this  hole 
full  of  water,  as  we  saw  it,  and  the  large  tree  had 
sunk  in  it.  The  size  of  the  hole  seemed  to  be  de- 
termined by  the  reach  of  the  roots  of  the  tree. 
The  tree  had  so  entirely  disappeared,  that  he  could 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  115 

not  with  a  long  pole  touch  its  top.  Since  then 
the  water  had  neither  subsided  nor  overflowed. 
The  ground  about  was  compact  gravel.  We  tried 
sounding  tbe  hole  with  poles,  but  could  make 
nothing  of  it.  The  water  seemed  to  have  no  out- 
let nor  inlet ;  at  least,  it  did  not  rise  or  fall. 
Why  should  the  solid  hill  give  way  at  this  place, 
and  swallow  up  a  tree  1  and  if  the  water  had  any 
connection  with  the  lake,  two  hundred  feet  below 
and  at  some  distance  away,  why  did  n't  the  water 
run  out  ?  Why  should  the  unscientific  traveller 
have  a  thing  of  this  kind  thrown  in  his  way  %  The 
driver  did  not  know. 

This  phenomenon  made  us  a  little  suspicious  of 
the  foundations  of  this  island,  which  is  already 
invaded  by  the  jealous  ocean,  and  is  anchored  to 
the  continent  only  by  the  cable. 

The  drive  became  more  charming  as  the  sun 
went  down,  and  we  saw  the  hills  grow  purple 
beyond  the  Bras  d'Or.  The  road  wound  around 
lovely  coves  and  across  low  promontories,  giving 
us  new  beauties  at  every  turn.  Before  dark  we 
had  crossed  the  Middle  River  and  the  Big  Bad- 


116  BADDECK, 


deck,  on  long  wooden  bridges,  which  straggled  over 
sluggish  waters  and  long  reaches  of  marsh,  upon 
which  Mary  might  have  been  sent  to  call  the  cat- 
tle home.  These  bridges  were  shaky  and  wanted 
a  plank  at  intervals,  but  they  are  in  keeping  with 
the  enterprise  of  the  country.  As  dusk  came  on, 
we  crossed  the  last  hill,  and  were  bowling  along 
by  the  still  gleaming  water.  Lights  began  to 
appear  in  infrequent  farm-houses,  and  under  cover 
of  the  gathering  night  the  houses  seemed  to  be 
stately  mansions ;  and  we  fancied  we  were  on  a 
noble  highway,  lined  with  elegant  suburban  sea- 
side residences,  and  about  to  drive  into  a  town  of 
wealth  and  a  port  of  gi'eat  commerce.  We  were, 
nevertheless,  anxious  about  Baddeck.  What  sort 
of  haven  were  we  to  reach  after  our  heroic  (with 
the  reader's  permission)  week  of  travel  *?  Would 
the  hotel  be  like  that  at  Plaster  Cove  %  Were  our 
thirty-six  hours  of  sleepless  staging  to  terminate 
in  a  night  of  misery  and  a  Sunday  of  discomfort  ] 

W^e  came  into  a  straggling  village  ]  that  we 
could  see  by  the  starlight.  But  we  stopped  at  the 
door  of  a  very  unhotel-like  appearing  hotel.     It 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  117 

had  in  front  a  flower-garden  ;  it  was  blazing  with 
welcome  lights ;  it  opened  hospitable  doors,  and 
we  were  received  by  a  family  who  expected  us. 
The  house  was  a  large  one,  for  two  guests ;  and 
we  enjoyed  the  luxury  of  spacious  rooms,  an 
abundant  supper,  and  a  friendly  welcome  ;  and,  in 
short,  found  ourselves  at  home.  The  proprietor 
of  the  Telegi-aph  House  is  the  superintendent  of 
the  land  lines  of  Cape  Breton,  a  Scotchman,  of 
course ;  but  his  wife  is  a  Newfoundland  lady. 
We  cannot  violate  the  sanctity  of  what  seemed 
like  private  hospitality  by  speaking  freely  of  this 
lady  and  the  lovely  girls,  her  daughters,  whose 
education  has  been  so  admirably  advanced  in  the 
excellent  school  at  Baddeckj  but  we  can  confi- 
dently advise  any  American  who  is  going  to  New- 
foundland, to  get  a  wife  there,  if  he  wants  one 
at  all.  It  is  the  only  new  article  he  can  bring 
from  the  Provinces  that  he  will  not  have  to  pay 
duty  on.  And  here  is  a  suggestion  to  our  tariff- 
mongers  for  the  "  protection "  of  New  England 
women. 

The  reader  probably  cannot  appreciate  the  de- 


118  BADDECK. 

licious  sense  of  rest  and  of  achievement  which  we 
enjoyed  in  this  tidy  inn,  nor  share  the  anticipa- 
tions of  undisturbed,  luxurious  sleep,  in  which  we 
indulged  as  we  sat  upon  the  upper  balcony  after 
supper,  and  saw  the  moon  rise  over  the  glistening 
Bras  d'Or  and  flood  with  light  the  islands  and 
headlands  of  the  beautiful  bay.  Anchored  at 
some  distance  from  the  shore  was  a  slender  coast- 
ing vessel.  The  big  red  moon  happened  to  come 
up  just  behind  it,  and  the  masts  and  spars  and 
ropes  of  the  vessel  came  out,  distinctly  traced  on 
the  golden  background,  making  such  a  night  pic- 
ture as  I  once  saw  painted  of  a  ship  in  a  fiord 
of  Norway.  The  scene  was  enchanting.  And  we 
respected  then  the  heretofore  seemingly  insane 
impulse  that  had  driven  us  on  to  Baddeck. 


w^ 


IV. 


"  He  had  no  ill-will  to  the  Scotch ;  for,  if  he  had  been  con- 
scious of  that,  he  never  would  have  thrown  himself  into  the 
bosom  of  their  coimtry,  and  trusted  to  the  protection  of  its 
remote  inhabitants  with  a  fearless  confidence."  —  Boswell's 
Johnson. 


LTHOUGH  it  was  an  open  and  flagrant 
violation  of  the  Sabbath  day  as  it  is 
kept  in  Scotch  Baddeck,  our  kind  hosts 
let  us  sleep  late  on  Sunday  morning,  with  no  re- 
minder that  we  were  not  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the 
just.  It  was  the  charming  Maud,  a  flitting  sun- 
beam of  a  girl,  who  waited  to  bring  us  our  break- 
fast, and  thereby  lost  the  opportunity  of  going  to 
church  with  the  rest  of  the  family,  —  an  act  of 
gracious  hospitality  which  the  tired  travellers 
appreciated. 

The  travellers  were  unable,  indeed,  to  awaken 
into   any   feeling   of  Sabbatical   straitness.     The 


120  BAD  DECK, 


morning  was  delicious,  —  such  a  morning  as  never 
visits  any  place  except  an  island ;  a  bright,  spark- 
ling morning,  with  the  exhilaration  of  the  air 
softened  by  the  sea.  What  a  day  it  was  for 
idleness,  for  voluptuous  rest,  after  the  flight  by 
day  and  night  from  St.  John  !  It  was  enough, 
now  that  the  morning  was  fully  opened  and  ad- 
vancing to  the  splendor  of  noon,  to  sit  upon  the 
upper  balcony,  looking  upon  the  Bras  d'Or  and  the 
peaceful  hills  beyond,  reposeful  and  yet  spark- 
ling with  the  stir  and  color  of  summer,  and  inhale 
the  balmy  air.  (We  greatly  need  another  word 
to  describe  good  air,  properly  heated,  besides  this 
overworked  "balmy.")  Perhaps  it  might  in  some 
regions  be  considered  Sabbath-keeping,  simply  to 
rest  in  such  a  soothing  situation,  —  rest,  and  not 
incessant  activity,  having  been  one  of  the  original 
designs  of  the  day. 

But  our  travellers  were  from  New  England,  and 
they  were  not  willing  to  be  outdone  in  the  matter 
of  Sunday  observances  by  such  an  out-of-the-way 
and  nameless  place  as  Baddeck.  They  did  not 
set   themselves   up  as  missionaries  to   these  be- 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  121 

nighted  Gaelic  people,  to  teach  them  by  example 
that  the  notion  of  Sunday  which  obtained  two 
hundred  years  ago  in  Scotland  had  been  modified, 
and  that  the  sacredness  of  it  had  pretty  much 
disappeared  with  the  unpleasantness  of  it.  They 
rather  lent  themselves  to  the  humor  of  the  hour, 
and  probably  by  their  demeanor  encouraged  the 
respect  for  the  day  on  Cape  Breton  Island.  Nei- 
ther by  birth  nor  education  were  the  travellers 
fishermen  on  Sunday,  and  they  were  not  moved 
to  tempt  the  authorities  to  lock  them  up  for 
dropping  here  a  line  and  there  a  line  on  the 
Lord's  day. 

In  fact,  before  I  had  finished  my  second  cup 
of  Maud-mixed  coffee,  my  companion,  with  a  little 
show  of  haste,  had  gone  in  search  of  the  kirk,  and  I 
followed  him,  with  more  scrupulousness,  as  soon  as 
I  could  without  breaking  the  day  of  rest.  Although 
it  was  Sunday,  I  could  not  but  notice  that  Baddeck 
was  a  clean-looking  village  of  white  wooden  houses, 
of  perhaps  seven  or  eight  hundred  inhabitants; 
that  it  stretched  along  the  bay  for  a  mile  or  more, 
straggling  oiF  into  farm-houses  at  each  end,  lying 


122  BADDECK, 


for  the  most  part  on  the  sloping  curve  of  the  bay. 
There  were  a  few  country-looking  stores  and  shops, 
and  on  the  shore  three  or  four  rather  decayed  and 
shaky  wharves  ran  into  the  water,  and  a  few 
schooners  lay  at  anchor  near  them  ;  and  the  usual 
decaying  warehouses  leaned  about  the  docks.  A 
peaceful  and  perhaps  a  thriving  place,  but  not  a 
bustling  place.  As  I  walked  down  the  road,  a 
sail-boat  put  out  from  the  shore  and  slowly  dis- 
appeared round  the  island  in  the  direction  of  the 
Grand  Narrows.  It  had  a  small  pleasure  party 
on  board.  None  of  them  were  drowned  that  day, 
and  I  learned  at  night  that  they  were  Roman 
Catholics  from  Whykokomagh. 

The  kirk,  which  stands  near  the  water,  and  at 
a  distance  shows  a  pretty  wooden  spire,  is  after 
the  pattern  of  a  New  England  meeting-house. 
When  I  reached  it,  the  house  was  full  and  the 
service  had  begun.  There  was  something  familiar 
in  the  bareness  and  uncompromising  plainness 
and  ugliness  of  the  interior.  The  pews  had  high 
backs,  with  narrow,  uncushioned  seats.  The  pul- 
pit was  high,  —  a  sort  of  theological  fortification, 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  123 

—  approached  by  wide,  curving  flights  of  stairs  on 
either  side.  Those  who  occupied  the  near  seats 
to  the  right  and  left  of  the  pulpit  had  in  front 
of  them  a  blank  board  partition,  and  could  not 
bj  any  possibility  see  the  minister,  though  they 
broke  their  necks  backwards  over  their  high  coat- 
collars.  The  congregation  had  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  a  country  New  England  congregation 
of  say  twenty  years  ago.  The  clothes  they  wore 
had  been  Sunday  clothes  for  at  least  that  length 
of  time.  Such  clothes  have  a  look  of  I  know  not 
what  devout  and  painful  respectability,  that  is  in 
keeping  with  the  worldly  notion  of  rigid  Scotch 
Presbyterianism.  One  saw  with  pleasure  the 
fresh  and  rosy -cheeked  children  of  this  strict 
generation,  but  the  women  of  the  audience  were 
not  in  appearance  different  from  newly  arrived 
and  respectable  Irish  immigrants.  They  wore  a 
white  cap  with  long  frills  over  the  forehead,  and 
I  black  handkerchief  thrown  over  it  and  hanging 
down  the  neck,  —  a  quaint  and  not  unpleasing 
disguise. 

The  house,  as  I  said,  was  crowded.     It  is  the 


124  BADDECK, 


custom  in  this  region  to  go  to  church,  —  for 
whole  faraihes  to  go,  even  the  smallest  children ; 
and  they  not  unfrequently  walk  six  or  seven  miles 
to  attend  the  sei-vice.  There  is  a  kind  of  merit 
in  this  act  that  makes  up  for  the  lack  of  certain 
other  Christian  virtues  that  are  practised  else- 
where. The  service  was  worth  coming  seven 
miles  to  participate  in  !  —  it  was  about  two  hours 
long,  and  one  might  well  feel  as  if  he  had  per- 
formed a  work  of  long-suffering  to  sit  through  it. 
The  singing  was  strictly  congregational.  Con- 
gregational singing  is  good  (for  those  who  like  it) 
when  the  congregation  can  sing.  This  congrega- 
tion could  not  sing,  but  it  could  grind  the  Psalms 
of  David  powerfully.  They  sing  nothing  else  but 
the  old  Scotch  version  of  the  Psalms,  in  a  patient 
and  faithful  long  metre.  And  this  is  regarded, 
and  with  considerable  plausibility,  as  an  act  of 
worship.  It  certainly  has  small  element  of  pleas- 
ure in  it.  Here  is  a  stanza  from  Psalm  xlv., 
which  the  congregation,  without  any  instrumental 
nonsense,  went  through  in  a  dragging,  drawling 
manner,  and  with  perfect  individual  independence 
as  to  time  :  — 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  125 

"  Thine  arroAvs  sharply  pierce  the  heart  of  th'  enemies  of  the 
king; 
And  under  thy  suh-jec-shi-on  the  people  down  do  bring." 

The  sermon  was  extempore,  and  in  English  with 
Scotch  pronunciation;  and  it  filled  a  sohd  hour 
of  time.  T  am  not  a  good  judge  of  sermons,  and 
this  one  was  mere  chips  to  me ;  but  my  com- 
panion, who  knows  a  sermon  when  he  hears  it, 
said  that  this  was  strictly  theological,  and  Scotch 
theology  at  that,  and  not  at  all  expository.  It 
was  doubtless  my  fault  that  I  got  no  idea  what- 
ever from  it.  But  the  adults  of  the  congregation 
appeared  to  be  perfectly  satisfied  with  it ;  at  least 
they  sat  bolt  upright  and  nodded  assent  continu- 
ally. The  children  all  went  to  sleep  under  it, 
without  any  hypocritical  show  of  attention.  To 
be  sure,  the  day  was  warm  and  the  house  was 
unventilated.  If  the  windows  had  been  opened 
so  as  to  admit  the  fresh  air  from  the  Bras  D'Or, 
I  presume  the  hard-working  farmers  and  their 
wives  would  have  resented  such  an  interference 
with  their  ordained  Sunday  naps,  and  the  preach- 
er's sermon  would  have  seemed  more  musty  than 


126  BADDECK, 


it  appeared  to  be  in  that  congenial  and  drowsy- 
air.  Considering  that  only  half  of  the  congrega- 
tion could  understand  the  preacher,  its  behavior 
was  exemplary. 

After  the  sermon,  a  collection  was  taken  up  for 
the  minister ;  and  I  noticed  that  nothing  but 
pennies  rattled  into  the  boxes,  —  a  melancholy- 
sound  for  the  pastor.  This  might  appear  nig- 
gardly on  the  part  of  these  Scotch  Presbyterians, 
but  it  is  on  principle  that  they  put  only  a  penny 
into  the  box ;  they  say  that  they  want  a  free 
gospel,  and  so  far  as  they  are  concerned  they  have 
it.  Although  the  farmers  about  the  Bras  d'Or  are 
well-to-do,  they  do  not  give  their  minister  enough 
to  keep  his  soul  in  his  Gaelic  body,  and  his  poor 
support  is  eked  out  by  the  contributions  of  a 
missionary  society.  It  was  gi'atifying  to  learn 
that  this  was  not  from  stinginess  on  the  part  of 
the  people,  but  was  due  to  their  religious  principle. 
It  seemed  to  us  that  everybody  ought  to  be  good 
in  a  country  where  it  costs  next  to  nothing. 

When  the  service  was  over,  about  half  of  the 
people  departed ;  the  rest  remained  in  their  seats, 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  127 

and  prepared  to  enter  upon  their  Sabbath  exer- 
cises. These  latter  were  all  Gaelic  people,  who  had 
understood  little  or  nothing  of  the  English  service. 
The  minister  turned  himself  at  once  into  a  Gaelic 
preacher,  and  repeated  in  that  language  the  long 
exercises  of  the  morning.  The  sermon  and  perhaps 
the  prayers  were  quite  as  enjoyable  in  Gaelic  as  in 
English,  and  the  singing  was  a  great  improvement. 
It  was  of  the  same  Psalms,  but  the  congregation 
chanted  them  in  a  wild  and  weird  tone  and  man- 
ner, as  wailing  and  barbarous  to  modern  ears  as 
any  Highland  devotional  outburst  of  two  centuries 
ago.  This  service  also  lasted  about  two  hours; 
and  as  soon  as  it  was  over  the  faithful  minister, 
without  any  rest  or  refreshment,  organized  the 
Sunday  school,  and  it  must  have  been  half  past 
three  o'clock  before  that  was  over.  And  this  is 
considered  a  day  of  rest. 

These  Gaelic  Christians,  we  were  informed,  are 
of  a  very  old  pattern;  and  some  of  them  cling 
more  closely  to  religious  observances  than  to  mo- 
rality. Sunday  is  nowhere  observed  with  more 
strictness.     The  community  seems  to   be  a  very 


128  BADDECK, 


orderly  and  thrifty  one,  except  upon  solemn  and 
stated  occasions.  One  of  these  occasions  is  the 
celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper ;  and  in  this  the 
ancient  Highland  traditions  are  preserved.  The 
rite  is  celebrated  not  oftener  than  once  a  year  by 
any  church.  It  then  invites  the  neighboring 
churches  to  partake  with  it,  —  the  celebration 
being  usually  in  the  summer  and  early  fall  months. 
It  has  some  of  the  characteristics  of  a  "camp- 
meeting."  People  come  from  long  distances,  and 
as  many  as  two  thousand  and  three  thousand  as- 
semble together.  They  quarter  themselves  with- 
out special  invitation  upon  the  members  of  the  in- 
viting church.  Sometimes  fifty  people  will  pounce 
upon  one  farmer,  overflowing  his  house  and  his 
barn  and  swarming  all  about  his  premises,  con- 
suming all  the  provisions  he  has  laid  up  for  his 
family,  and  all  he  can  raise  money  to  buy,  and 
literally  eating  him  out  of  house  and  home.  Not 
seldom  a  man  is  almost  ruined  by  one  of  these 
religious  raids,  —  at  least  he  is  left  with  a  debt  of 
hundreds  of  dollars.  The  multitude  assembles  on 
Thursday  and  remains  ovet  Sunday.     There   ia 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING,  129 

preaching  every  day,  but  there  is  something  be- 
sides. Whatever  may  be  the  devotion  of  a  part 
of  the  assembly,  the  four  days  are,  in  general,  days 
of  license,  of  carousing,  of  drinking,  and  of  other 
excesses,  which  our  informant  said  he  would  not 
particularize ;  we  could  understand  what  they  were 
by  reading  St.  Paul's  rebuke  of  the  Corinthians 
for  similar  ofifences.  The  evil  has  become  so  great 
and  burdensome  that  the  celebration  of  this  sacred 
rite  will  have  to  be  reformed  altogether. 

Such  a  Sabbath  quiet  pervaded  the  street  of 
Baddeck,  that  the  fast  driving  of  the  Gaels  in  their 
rattling,  one-horse  wagons,  crowded  full  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  —  released  from  their  long 
sanctuary  privileges,  and  going  home,  —  was  a  sort 
of  profanation  of  the  day ;  and  we  gladly  turned 
aside  to  visit  the  rural  jail  of  the  town. 

Upon  the  principal  street  or  road  of  Baddeck 
stands  the  dreadful  prison-house.  It  is  a  story 
and  a  quarter  edifice,  built  of  stone  and  substan- 
tially whitewashed ;  retired  a  little  from  the  road, 
with  a  square  of  green  turf  in  front  of  it,  I  should 
have  taken  it  for  the  residence  of  the  Dairyman's 


130  BADDECK, 


Daughter,  but  for  the  iron  gratings  at  the  lower 
windows.  A  more  inviting  place  to  spend  the 
summer  in,  a  vicious  person  could  not  have.  The 
Scotch  keeper  of  it  is  an  old,  garrulous,  obliging 
man,  and  keeps  codfish  tackle  to  loan.  I  think 
that  if  he  had  a  prisoner  who  was  fond  of  fishing, 
he  would  take  him  with  him  on  the  bay  in  pursuit 
of  the  mackerel  and  the  cod.  If  the  prisoner  were 
to  take  advantage  of  his  freedom  and  attempt  to 
escape,  the  jailer's  feelings  would  be  hurt,  and 
public  opinion  would  hardly  approve  the  prisoner's 
conduct. 

The  jail  door  was  hospitably  open,  and  the 
keeper  invited  us  to  enter.  Having  seen  the  in- 
side of  a  good  many  prisons  in  our  own  country 
(ofi&cially),  we  were  interested  in  inspecting  this. 
It  was  a  favorable  time  for  doing  so,  for  there  hap- 
pened to  be  a  man  confined  there,  a  circumstance 
which  seemed  to  increase  the  keeper's  feeling  of 
responsibility  in  his  office.  The  edifice  had  four 
rooms  on  the  ground-floor,  and  an  attic  sleeping- 
room  above.  Three  of  these  rooms,  which  were 
perhaps  twelve  feet  by  fifteen  feet,  were  cells ;  the 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  131 

third  was  occupied  by  the  jailer's  family.  The 
family  were  now  also  occupying  the  front  cell,  —  a 
cheerful  room  commanding  a  view  of  the  village 
street  and  of  the  bay.  A  prisoner  of  a  philosophic 
turn  of  mind,  who  had  committed  some  crime  of 
sufficient  magnitude  to  make  him  willing  to  retire 
from  the  world  for  a  season  and  rest,  might  enjoy 
himself  here  very  well. 

The  jailer  exhibited  his  premises  with  an  air  of 
modesty.  In  the  rear  was  a  small  yard,  surround- 
ed by  a  board  fence,  in  which  the  prisoner  took  his 
exercise.  An  active  boy  could  climb  over  it,  and 
an  enterprising  pig  could  go  through  it  almost  any- 
where. The  keeper  said  that  he  intended  at  the 
next  court  to  ask  the  commissioners  to  build  the 
fence  higher  and  stop  up  the  holes.  Otherwise 
the  jail  was  in  good  condition.  Its  inmates  were 
few  ;  in  fact,  it  was  rather  apt  to  be  empty  :  its 
occupants  were  usually  prisoners  for  debt,  or  for 
some  trifling  breach  of  the  peace,  committed  under 
the  influence  of  the  liquor  that  makes  one  "  unco 
happy."  Whether  or  not  the  people  of  the  region 
have  a  high  moral  standard,  crime  is  almost  un- 


132  BADDECK, 

known ;  the  jail  itself  is  an  evidence  of  primeval 
simplicity.  The  great  incident  in  the  old  jailer's 
life  had  been  the  rescue  of  a  well-known  citizen 
who  was  confined  on  a  charge  of  misuse  of  public 
money.  The  keeper  showed  me  a  place  in  the 
outer  wall  of  the  front  cell,  where  an  attempt  had 
been  made  to  batter  a  hole  through.  The  High- 
land clan  and  kinsfolk  of  the  alleged  defaulter 
came  one  night  and  threatened  to  knock  the  jail  in 
pieces  if  he  was  not  given  up.  They  bruised  the 
wall,  broke  the  windows,  and  finally  smashed  in 
the  door  and  took  their  man  away.  The  jailer  was 
greatly  excited  at  this  rudeness,  and  went  almost 
immediately  and  purchased  a  pistol.  He  said  that 
for  a  time  he  did  n't  feel  safe  in  the  jail  without  it. 
The  mob  had  thrown  stones  at  the  upper  windows, 
in  order  to  awaken  him,  and  had  insulted  him 
with  cursing  and  offensive  language. 

Having  finished  inspecting  the  building,  I  was 
unfortunately  moved  by  I  know  not  what  national 
pride  and  knowledge  of  institutions  superior  to  this 
at  home,  to  say,  — 

"  This  is  a  pleasant  jail,  but  it  does  n't  look 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  133 

much  like  our  great  prisons ;  we  have  as  many  as 
a  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  men  in  some  of  our 
institutions." 

"Aye,  aye,  I  have  heard  tell,"  said  the  jailer, 
shaking  his  head  in  pity,  "  it 's  an  awfu'  place,  an 
awfu'  place,  —  the  United  States.  I  suppose  it 's 
the  wickedest  country  that  ever  was  in  the  world. 
I  don't  know,  —  I  don't  know  what  is  to  become  of 
it.  It  's  worse  than  Sodom.  There  was  that  dread- 
ful war  on  the  South ;  and  I  hear  now  it 's  very  un- 
safe, full  of  murders  and  robberies  and  corruption." 

I  did  not  attempt  to  correct  this  impression  con- 
cerning my  native  land,  for  I  saw  it  was  a  comfort 
to  the  simple  jailer,  but  I  tried  to  put  a  thorn  into 
him  by  saying,  — 

"  Yes,  we  have  a  good  many  criminals,  but  the 
majority  of  them,  the  majority  of  those  in  jails,  are 
foreigners ;  they  come  from  Ireland,  England,  and 
the  Provinces." 

But  the  old  man  only  shook  his  head  more 
solemnly,  and  persisted,  "  It 's  an  awfu'  wicked 
country." 

Before  I  came  away  I  was  permitted  to  have  an 


)[34:  BADDECK, 

iiiterview  with  the  sole  prisoner,  a  very  pleasant 
and  talkative  man,  who  was  glad  to  see  company, 
especially  intelligent  company  who  understood 
about  things,  he  was  pleased  to  say.  I  have  sel- 
dom met  a  more  agreeable  rogue,  or  one  so  philo- 
sophical, —  a  man  of  travel  and  varied  experiences. 
He  was  a  lively,  robust  Provincial  of  middle  age, 
bullet-headed,  with  a  mass  of  curly  black  hair,  and 
small,  round  black  eyes,  that  danced  and  sparkled 
with  good-humor.  He  was  by  trade  a  carpenter, 
and  had  a  work-bench  in  his  cell,  at  which  he 
Ayorked  on  week-days.  He  had  been  put  in  jail  on 
suspicion  of  stealing  a  buffalo-robe,  and  he  lay  in 
jail  eight  months,  waiting  for  the  judge  to  come 
to  Baddeck  on  his  yearly  circuit.  He  did  not 
steal  the  robe,  as  he  assured  me,  but  it  was  found 
in  his  house,  and  the  judge  gave  him  four  months 
in  jail,  making  a  year  in  all,  —  a  month  of  which 
was  still  to  serve.  But  he  was  not  at  all  anxious 
for  the  end  of  his  term ;  for  his  wife  was  outside. 

Jock,  for  he  was  familiarly  so  called,  asked  me 
where  I  was  from.  As  I  had  not  found  it  very 
profitable  to  hail  from  the  United  States,  and  had 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  135 

found,  in  fact,  that  the  name  United  States  did 
not  convey  any  definite  impression  to  the  average 
Cape  Breton  mind,  I  ventured  upon  the  bold 
assertion,  for  which  I  hope  Bostonians  will  forgive 
me,  that  I  was  from  Boston.  For  Boston  is 
known  in  the  eastern  Provinces. 

**  Are  you  1 "  cried  the  man,  delighted.  "  I  've 
lived  in  Boston,  myself.  There  's  just  been  an 
awful  fire  near  there." 

"Indeed!"  I  said;  "I  heard  nothing  of  it." 
And  I  was  startled  with  the  possibility  that  Bos- 
ton had  burned  up  again  while  we  were  crawling 
along  through  Nova  Scotia. 

"  Yes,  here  it  is,  in  the  last  paper."  The  man 
bustled  away  and  found  his  late  paper,  and  thrust 
it  through  the  grating,  with  the  inquiry,  "  Can 
you  read?" 

Though  the  question  was  unexpected,  and  I 
had  never  thought  before  whether  I  could  read  or 
not,  I  confessed  that  I  could  probably  make  out 
the  meaning,  and  took  the  newspaper.  The  report 
of  the  fire  "  near  Boston  "  turned  out  to  be  the  old 
news  of  the  conflagration  in  Portland,  Oregon  ! 


136  BAD  DECK, 


Disposed  to  devote  a  portion  of  this  Sunday  to 
the  reformation  of  this  lively  criminal,  I  continued 
the  conversation  with  him.  It  seemed  that  he 
had  been  in  jail  before,  and  was  not  unaccustomed 
to  the  life.  He  w^as  not  often  lonesome ;  he  had 
his  work-bench  and  newspapers,  and  it  was  a 
quiet  place ;  on  the  whole,  he  enjoyed  it,  and 
should  rather  regret  it  w^hen  his  time  was  up,  a 
month  from  then. 

Had  he  any  family"? 

"  0  yes.  When  the  census  was  round,  I  con- 
tributed more  to  it  than  anybody  in  town.  Got  a 
wife  and  eleven  children." 

"  Well,  don't  you  think  it  would  pay  best  to  be 
honest,  and  live  with  your  family,  out  of  jaiH 
You  surely  never  had  anything  but  trouble  from 
dishonesty." 

"  That 's  about  so,  boss.  I  mean  to  go  on  the 
square  after  this.  But,  you  see,"  and  here  he 
began  to  speak  confidentially,  "things  are  fixed 
about  so  in  this  world,  and  a  man  's  got  to  live  his 
life.  I  '11  tell  you  how  it  was.  It  all  came  about 
from  a  woman.      I  was  a  carpenter,  had  a  good 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  137 

trade,  and  went  down  to  St.  Peter's  to  work. 
There  I  got  acquainted  with  a  Frenchwoman,  — 
you  know  what  Frenchwomen  are,  —  and  I  had  to 
marry  her.  The  fact  is  she  was  rather  low  fam- 
ily ;  not  so  very  low,  you  know,  but  not  so  good 
as  mine.  Well,  I  wanted  to  go  to  Boston  to  work 
at  my  trade,  but  she  would  n't  go ;  and  I  went, 
but  she  would  n't  come  to  me,  so  in  two  or  three 
years  I  came  back.  A  man  can't  help  himself, 
you  know,  when  he  gets  in  with  a  woman,  espe- 
cially a  Frenchwoman.  Things  did  n't  go  very 
well,  and  never  have.  I  can't  make  much  out  of 
it,  but  I  reckon  a  man's  got  to  live  his  life. 
Ain't  that  about  sol" 

"  Perhaps  so.  But  you  'd  better  try  to  mend 
matters  when  you  get  out.  Won't  it  seem  rather 
good  to  get  out  and  see  your  wife  and  family 
again  1 " 

"  I  don't  know.     I  have  peace  here." 

The  question  of  his  liberty  seemed  rather  to 

depress   this  cheerful  and  vivacious  philosopher, 

and  I  wondered  what  the  woman  could  be  from 

whose  companionship  the  man  chose  to  be  pro- 


138  BADDECK, 


tected  by  jail-bolts.  I  asked  the  landlord  about 
her,  and  his  reply  was  descriptive  and  sufficient. 
He  only  said,   "  She  's  a  yelper." 

Besides  the  church  and  the  jail  there  are  no 
public  institutions  in  Baddeck  to  see  on  Sunday, 
or  on  any  other  day ;  but  it  has  very  good  schools, 
and  the  examination-papers  of  Maud  and  her  elder 
sister  would  do  credit  to  Boston  scholars  even. 
You  would  not  say  that  the  place  was  stuffed  with 
books,  or  overrun  by  lecturers,  but  it  is  an  orderly, 
Sabbath-keeping,  fairly  intelligent  town.  Book- 
agents  visit  it  with  other  commercial  travellers, 
but  the  flood  of  knowledge,  which  is  said  to  be 
the  beginning  of  sorrow,  is  hardly  turned  in  that 
direction  yet.  I  heard  of  a  feeble  lecture-course 
in  Halifax,  supplied  by  local  celebrities,  some  of 
them  from  St.  John ;  but  so  far  as  I  can  see,  this 
is  a  virgin  field  for  the  platform  philosophers 
under  whose  instructions  we  have  become  the 
well-informed  people  we  are. 

The  peaceful  jail  and  the  somewhat  tiresome 
church  exhaust  one's  opportimities  for  doing  good 
in  Baddeck  on  Sunday.     There  seemed  to  be  no 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  139 

idlers  about,  to  reprove;  the  occasional  lounger 
on  the  skeleton  wharves  was  in  his  Sunday  clothes, 
and  therefore  within  the  statute.  No  one,  prob- 
ably, would  have  thought  of  rowing  out  beyond 
the  island  to  fish  for  cod,  —  although,  as  that  fish 
is  ready  to  bite,  and  his  associations  are  more  or 
less  sacred,  there  might  be  excuses  for  angling  for 
him  on  Sunday,  when  it  would  be  wicked  to 
throw  a  line  for  another  sort  of  fish.  My  earliest 
recollections  are  of  the  codfish  on  the  meeting- 
house spires  in  New  England,  —  his  sacred  tail 
pointing  the  way  the  wind  went.  I  did  not  know 
then  why  this  emblem  should  be  placed  upon  a 
house  of  worship,  any  more  than  I  knew  why 
codfish-balls  appeared  always  upon  the  Sunday 
breakfast-table.  But  these  associations  invested 
this  plebeian  fish  with  something  of  a  religious 
character,  which  he  has  never  quite  lost,  in  my 
mind. 

Having  attributed  the  quiet  of  Baddeck  on  Sun- 
day to  religion,  we  did  not  know  to  what  to  lay 
the  quiet  on  Monday.  But  its  peacefulness  con- 
tinued.    I  have  no  doubt  that  the  farmers  began 


140  BADDECK, 


to  farm,  and  the  traders  to  trade,  and  the  sailors 
to  sail ;  but  the  tourist  felt  that  he  had  come  into 
a  place  of  rest.  The  promise  of  the  red  sky  the 
evening  before  was  fulfilled  in  another  royal  day. 
There  was  an  inspiration  in  the  air  that  one  looks 
for  rather  in  the  mountains  than  on  the  sea-coast ; 
it  seemed  like  some  new  and  gentle  compound  of 
sea-air  and  land-air,  which  was  the  perfection  of 
breathing  material.  In  this  atmosphere,  which 
seemed  to  flow  over  all  these  Atlantic  isles  at  this 
season,  one  endures  a  great  deal  of  exertion  with 
little  fatigue ;  or  he  is  content  to  sit  still,  and  has 
no  feeling  of  sluggishness.  Mere  living  is  a  kind 
of  happiness,  and  the  easy-going  traveller  is  satis- 
fied with  little  to  do  and  less  to  see.  Let  the 
reader  not  understand  that  we  are  recommending 
him  to  go  to  Baddeck.  Far  from  it.  The  reader 
was  never  yet  advised  to  go  to  any  place,  which 
he  did  not  growl  about  if  he  took  the  advice  and 
went  there.  If  he  discovers  it  himself,  the  case  is 
different.  We  know  too  well  what  would  happen. 
A  shoal  of  travellers  would  pour  down  upon  Cape 
Breton,  taking  with  them  their  dyspepsia,  their 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  Ul 

liver-complaints,  their  "lights"  derangements,  their 
discontent,  their  guns  and  fishing-tackle,  their  big 
trunks,  their  desire  for  rapid  travel,  their  enthusi- 
asm about  the  Gaelic  language,  their  love  for 
nature ;  and  they  would  very  likely  declare  that 
there  was  nothing  in  it.  And  the  traveller  would 
probably  be  right,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned.  There 
are  few  whom  it  would  pay  to  go  a  thousand 
miles  for  the  sake  of  sitting  on  the  dock  at  Bad- 
deck  when  the  sun  goes  down,  and  watching  the 
purple  lights  on  the  islands  and  the  distant  hills, 
the  red  flush  in  the  horizon  and  on  the  lake,  and 
the  creeping  on  of  gray  twilight.  You  can  see  all 
that  as  well  elsewhere  1  I  am  not  so  sure.  There 
is  a  harmony  of  beauty  about  the  Bras  d'Or  at 
Baddeck  which  is  lacking  in  many  scenes  of  more 
pretension. 

No.  We  advise  no  person  to  go  to  Cape  Bre- 
ton. But  if  any  one  does  go,  he  need  not  lack 
occupation.  If  he  is  there  late  in  the  fall  or  early 
in  the  winter,  he  may  hunt,  with  good  luck,  if  he 
is  able  to  hit  anything  with  a  rifle,  the  moose  and 
the   caribou   on  that   long   wilderness   peninsula 


142  BADDECK, 


between  Baddeck  and  Aspy  Bay,  where  the  old 
cable  landed.  He  may  also  have  his  fill  of  salmon 
fishing  in  June  and  July,  especially  on  the  Marjorie 
River.  As  late  as  August,  at  the  time  of  our 
visit,  a  hundred  people  were  camped  in  tents  on 
the  Marjorie,  wiliug  the  salmon  with  the  delusive 
fly,  and  leading  him  to  death  with  a  hook  in  his 
nose.  The  speckled  trout  lives  in  all  the  streams, 
and  can  be  caught  whenever  he  will  bite.  The 
day  we  went  for  him  appeared  to  be  an  off-day,  a 
sort  of  holiday  with  him. 

There  is  one  place,  however,  which  the  traveller 
must  not  fail  to  visit.  That  is  St.  Ann's  Bay. 
He  will  go  light  of  baggage,  for  he  must  hire  a 
farmer  to  carry  him  from  the  Bras  d'Or  to  the 
branch  of  St.  Ann's  harbor,  and  a  part  of  his 
journey  will  be  in  a  row-boat.  There  is  no  ride 
on  the  continent,  of  the  kind,  so  full  of  picturesque 
beauty  and  constant  surprises  as  this  around  the 
indentations  of  St.  Ann's  harbor.  From  the  high 
promontory  where  rests  the  fishing  village  of  St. 
Ann,  the  traveller  will  cross  to  English  Town. 
High    bluffs,    bold    shores,    exquisite    sea-views, 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  143 

mountainous  ranges,  delicious  air,  the  society  of 
a  member  of  the  Dominion  Parhament,  —  these 
are  some  of  the  things  to  be  enjoyed  at  this 
place.  In  point  of  grandeur  and  beauty  it  sur- 
passes Mt.  Desert,  and  is  really  the  most  attract- 
ive place  on  the  whole  line  of  the  Atlantic  Cable. 
If  the  traveller  has  any  sentiment  in  him  he  will 
visit  here,  not  without  emotion,  the  grave  of  the 
Nova  Scotia  Giant,  who  recently  laid  his  huge 
frame  along  this,  his  native  shore.  A  man  of 
gigantic  height  and  awful  breadth  of  shoulders, 
with  a  hand  as  big  as  a  shovel,  there  was  nothing 
mean  or  little  in  his  soul.  While  the  visitor  is 
gazing  at  his  vast  shoes,  which  now  can  be  used 
only  as  sledges,  he  will  be  told  that  the  Giant  was 
greatly  respected  by  his  neighbors  as  a  man  of 
ability  and  simple  integrity.  He  was  not  spoiled 
by  his  metropolitan  successes,  bringing  home  from 
his  foreign  triumphs  the  same  quiet  and  friendly 
demeanor  he  took  away ;  he  is  almost  the  only 
example  of  a  successful  public  man,  who  did  not 
feel  bigger  than  he  was.  He  performed  his  duty 
in  life  without  ostentation,  and  returned  to  the 


144  BAD  DECK, 


home  he  loved,  unspoiled  by  the  flattery  of  con- 
stant public  curiosity.  He  knew,  having  tried 
both,  how  much  better  it  is  to  be  good  than  to 
be  great.  I  should  like  to  have  known  him.  I 
should  like  to  know  how  the  world  looked  to  him 
from  his  altitude.  I  should  like  to  know  how 
much  food  it  took  at  one  time  to  make  an  im- 
pression on  him  ;  I  should  like  to  know  what 
eff'ect  an  idea  of  ordinary  size  had  in  his  capacious 
head.  I  should  like  to  feel  that  thrill  of  physical 
delight  he  must  have  experienced  in  merely  closing 
his  hand  over  something.  It  is  a  pity  that  he  coul^ 
not  have  been  educated  all  through,  beginning  at 
a  high  school,  and  ending  in  a  university.  There 
was  a  field  for  the  multifarious  new  education ! 
If  we  could  have  annexed  him  with  his  island,  I 
should  like  to  have  seen  him  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  He  would  have  made  foreign 
nations  respect  that  body,  and  fear  his  lightest 
remark  like  a  declaration  of  war.  And  he  would 
have  been  at  home  in  that  body  of  great  men. 
Alas !  he  has  passed  away,  leaving  little  influence 
except  a  good  example  of  growth,  and  a  grave 


AND   TEAT  SORT   OF   THING.  145 

which  is  a  new  promontory  on  that  ragged  coast 
swept  by  the  winds  of  the  untamed  Atlantic. 

I  could  describe  the  Bay  of  St.  Ann  more  mi- 
nutely and  graphically  if  it  were  desirable  to  do 
so;  but  I  trust  that  enough  has  been  said  to 
make  the  traveller  wish  to  go  there.  I  more 
unreservedly  urge  him  to  go  there,  because  we 
did  not  go,  and  we  shoidd  feel  no  responsibility 
for  his  liking  or  disliking.  He  will  go  upon  the 
recommendation  of  two  gentlemen  of  taste  and 
travel  whom  we  met  at  Baddeck,  residents  of 
Maine  and  familiar  with  most  of  the  odd  and 
striking  combinations  of  land  and  water  in  coast 
scenery.  When  a  Maine  man  admits  that  there 
is  any  place  finer  than  Mt.  Desert,  it  is  worth 
making  a  note  of 

On  Monday  we  went  a  fishing.  Davie  hitched 
to  a  rattling  wagon  something  that  he  called  a 
horse,  a  small,  rough  animal  with  a  great  deal  of 
"  go "  in  him,  if  he  could  be  coaxed  to  show  it. 
For  the  first  half-hour  he  went  mostly  in  a  circle 
in  front  of  the  inn,  moving  indifferently  backwards 
or  forwards,  perfectly  willing  to  go  down  the  road, 
7  J 


146  BADDECK, 


but  refusing  to  start  along  the  bay  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Middle  River.  Of  course  a  crowd  collected 
to  give  advice  and  make  remarks,  and  women 
appeared  at  the  doors  and  windows  of  adjacent 
houses.  Davie  said  he  did  n't  care  anything  about 
the  conduct  of  the  horse,  —  he  could  start  him 
after  a  while,  —  but  he  did  n't  like  to  have  all 
the  town  looking  at  him,  especially  the  girls ;  and 
besides,  such  an  exhibition  affected  the  market 
value  of  the  horse.  We  sat  in  the  wagon  circling 
round  and  round,  sometimes  in  the  ditch  and 
sometimes  out  of  it,  and  Davie  "  whaled "  the 
horse  with  his  whip  and  abused  him  with  his 
tongue.  It  was  a  pleasant  day,  and  the  specta- 
tors increased. 

There  are  two  ways  of  managing  a  balky  horse. 
My  companion  knew  one  of  them  and  I  the  other. 
His  method  is  to  sit  quietly  in  the  wagon,  and  at 
short  intervals  throw  a  small  pebble  at  the  horse. 
The  theory  is  that  these  repeated  sudden  annoy- 
ances will  operate  on  a  horse's  mind,  and  he  will 
try  to  escape  them  by  going  on.  The  spectators 
supplied  my  friend  with  stones,  and  he  pelted  the 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  147 

horse  with  measured  gentleness.  Probably  the 
horse  understood  this  method,  for  he  did  not 
notice  the  attack  at  all.  My  plan  was  to  speak 
gently  to  the  horse,  requesting  him  to  go,  and 
then  to  follow  the  refusal  by  one  sudden,  sharp 
cut  of  the  lash ;  to  wait  a  moment,  and  then  repeat 
the  operation.  The  dread  of  the  coming  lash  after 
the  gentle  word  will  start  any  horse.  I  tried  this, 
and  with  a  certain  success.  The  horse  backed  us 
into  the  ditch,  and  would  probably  have  backed 
himself  into  the  wagon,  if  I  had  continued. 
When  the  animal  was  at  length  ready  to  go, 
Davie  took  him  by  the  bridle,  ran  by  his  side, 
coaxed  him  into  a  gallop,  and  then,  leaping  in 
behind,  lashed  him  into  a  run,  which  had  little 
respite  for  ten  miles,  up  hill  or  down.  Remon- 
strance on  behalf  of  the  horse  was  in  vain,  and  it 
was  only  on  the  return  home  that  this  specimen 
Cape  Breton  driver  began  to  reflect  how  he  could 
erase  the  welts  from  the  horse's  back  before  his 
father  saw  them. 

Our  way  lay  along  the  charming  bay  of  the 
Bras  d'Or,  over  the  sprawling  bridge  of  the  Big 


148  BADDECK, 


Baddeck,  a  black,  sedgy,  lonesome  stream,  to 
Middle  River,  which  debouches  out  of  a  scraggy 
country  into  a  bayou  with  ragged  shores,  about 
which  the  Indians  have  encampments,  and  in 
which  are  the  skeleton  stakes  of  fish- weirs.  Sat- 
urday night  we  had  seen  trout  jumping  in  the 
still  water  above  the  bridge.  We  followed  the 
stream  up  two  or  three  miles  to  a  Gaelic  settle- 
ment of  farmers.  The  river  here  flows  through 
lovely  meadows,  sandy,  fertile,  and  sheltered  by 
hills,  —  a  green  Eden,  one  of  the  few  peaceful 
inhabited  spots  in  the  world.  I  could  conceive 
of  no  news  coming  to  these  Highlanders  later 
than  the  defeat  of  the  Pretender.  Turning  from 
the  road,  through  a  lane  and  crossing  a  shallow 
brook,  w^e  reached  the  dwelling  of  one  of  the 
original  McGregors,  or  at  least  as  good  as  an 
original.  Mr.  McGregor  is  a  fiery-haired  Scotch- 
man and  brother,  cordial  and  hospitable,  who 
entertained  our  wayward  horse,  and  freely  advised 
us  where  the  trout  on  his  iixrm  were  most  likely 
to  be  found  at  this  season  of  the  year. 

It  would  be  a  great  pleasure  to  speak  well  of 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  149 

Mr.  McGregor's  residence,  but  truth  is  older  than 
Scotchmen,  and  the  reader  looks  to  us  for  truth 
and  not  flattery.  Though  the  McGregor  seems  to 
have  a  good  farm,  his  house  is  little  better  than  a 
shanty,  —  a  rather  cheerless  place  for  the  "  wo- 
man "  to  slave  away  her  uneventful  life  in,  and 
bring  up  her  scantily  clothed  and  semi-wild  flock 
of  children.  And  yet  I  suppose  there  must  be 
happiness  in  it,  —  there  always  is  where  there  are 
plenty  of  children,  and  milk  enough  for  them.  A 
white-haired  boy  who  lacked  adequate  trousers, 
small  though  he  was,  was  brought  forward  by  his 
mother  to  describe  a  trout  he  had  recently  caught, 
which  was  nearly  as  long  as  the  boy  himself. 
The  young  Gael's  invention  was  rewarded  by  a 
present  of  real  fish-hooks.  We  found  here  in  this 
rude  cabin  the  hospitality  that  exists  in  all  remote 
regions  where  travellers  are  few.  Mrs.  McGregor 
had  none  of  that  reluctance,  which  women  feel  in 
all  more  civilized  agricultural  regions,  to  "  break  a 
pan  of  milk,"  and  Mr.  McGregor  even  pressed  us 
to  partake  freely  of  that  simple  drink.  And  he 
refused  to  take  any  pay  for  it,  in  a  sort  of  surprise 


150  BADDECK, 


that  such  a  siniple  act  of  hospitality  should  have 
any  commercial  value.  But  travellers  themselves 
destroy  one  of  their  chief  pleasures.  No  doubt 
we  planted  the  notion  in  the  McGregor  mind  that 
the  small  kindnesses  of  life  may  be  made  profit- 
able, by  offering  to  pay  for  the  milk;  and  prob- 
ably the  next  travellers  in  that  Eden  will  succeed 
in  leaving  some  small  change  there,  if  they  use  a 
little  tact. 

It  was  late  in  the  season  for  trout.  Perhaps 
the  McGregor  was  aware  of  that  when  he  freely 
gave  us  the  run  of  the  stream  in  his  meadows, 
and  pointed  out  the  pools  where  we  should  be 
sure  of  good  luck.  It  was  a  charming  August 
day,  just  the  day  that  trout  enjoy  lying  in  cool, 
deep  places,  and  moving  their  fins  in  quiet  con- 
tent, indifferent  to  the  skimming  fly  or  to  the 
proffered  sport  of  rod  and  reel.  The  Middle  River 
gracefully  winds  through  this  Vale  of  Tempe,  over 
a  sandy  bottom,  sometimes  sparkling  in  shallows, 
and  then  gently  reposing  in  the  broad  bends  of 
the  grassy  banks.  It  was  in  one  of  these  bends, 
where   the   stream   swirled   around   in    seductive 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  151 

eddies,  that  we  tried  our  skill.  We  heroically 
waded  the  stream  and  threw  our  flies  from  the 
highest  bank ;  but  neither  in  the  black  water  nor 
in  the  sandy  shallows  could  any  trout  be  coaxed 
to  spring  to  the  deceitful  leaders.  We  enjoyed 
the  distinction  of  being  the  only  persons  who  had 
ever  failed  to  strike  trout  in  that  pool,  and  this 
was  something.  The  meadows  were  sweet  with 
the  newly  cut  grass,  the  wind  softly  blew  down 
the  river,  large  white  clouds  sailed  high  overhead 
and  cast  shadows  on  the  changing  water ;  but  to 
all  these  gentle  influences  the  fish  were  insensible, 
and  sulked  in  their  cool  retreats.  At  length  in  a 
small  brook  flowing  into  the  Middle  River  we 
found  the  trout  more  sociable ;  and  it  is  lucky 
that  we  did  so,  for  I  should  with  reluctance  stain 
these  pages  with  a  fiction ;  and  yet  the  public 
would  have  just  reason  to  resent  a  fish-story 
without  any  fish  in  it.  Under  a  bank,  in  a  pool 
crossed  by  a  log  and  shaded  by  a  tree,  we  found  a 
drove  of  the  speckled  beauties  at  home, — dozens 
of  them  a  foot  long,  each  moving  lazily  a  little, 
their  black  backs  relieved  by  their  colored  fins. 


152  BADDECK, 


They  must  have  seen  us,  but  at  first  they  showed 
no  desire  for  a  closer  acquaintance.  To  the  red 
ibis  and  the  white  miller  and  the  brown  hackle 
and  the  gray  fly  they  were  ahke  indifferent.  Per- 
haps the  love  for  made  flies  is  an  artificial  taste 
and  has  to  be  cultivated.  These  at  any  rate  were 
uncivilized  trout,  and  it  was  only  when  we  took 
the  advice  of  the  young  McGregor  and  baited  our 
hooks  with  the  angle-worm,  that  the  fish  joined  in 
our  day's  sport.  They  could  not  resist  the  lively 
wiggle  of  the  worm  before  their  very  noses,  and 
"we  lifted  them  out  one  after  another,  gently,  and 
very  much  as  if  we  were  hooking  them  out  of  a 
barrel,  until  we  had  a  handsome  string.  It  may 
have  been  fun  for  them,  but  it  was  not  much 
sport  for  us.  All  the  small  ones  the  young  Mc- 
Gregor contemptuously  threw  back  into  the  water. 
The  sportsman  w411  perhaps  learn  from  this  inci- 
dent that  there  are  plenty  of  trout  in  Cape  Breton 
in  August,  but  that  the  fishing  is  not  exhilarating. 
The  next  morning  the  semi-weekly  steamboat 
from  Sydney  came  into  the  bay,  and  drew  all  the 
male  inhabitants  of  Baddeck  down  to  the  wharf; 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  153 

and  the  two  travellers,  reluctant  to  leave  the  hos- 
pitable inn,  and  the  peaceful  jail,  and  the  double- 
barrelled  church,  and  all  the  loveliness  of  this 
reposeful  place,  prepared  to  depart.  The  most 
conspicuous  person  on  the  steamboat  was  a  thin 
man  whose  extraordinary  height  was  made  more 
striking  by  his  very  long-waisted  black  coat  and 
his  very  short  pantaloons.  He  was  so  tall  that  he 
had  a  little  difficulty  in  keeping  his  balance,  and 
his  hat  was  set  upon  the  back  of  his  head  to  pre- 
serve his  equilibrium.  He  had  arrived  at  that 
stage  when  people  affected  as  he  was  are  oratori- 
cal, and  overflowing  with  information  and  good- 
nature. With  what  might  in  strict  art  be  called 
an  excess  of  expletives,  he  explained  that  he  was  a 
civil  engineer,  that  he  had  lost  his  rubber  coat, 
that  he  was  a  great  traveller  in  the  Provinces, 
and  he  seemed  to  find  a  humorous  satisfaction  in 
reiterating  the  fact  of  his  familiarity  with  Painsec- 
Junction.  It  evidently  hovered  in  the  misty  hori- 
zon of  his  mind  as  a  joke,  and  he  contrived  to  pre- 
sent it  to  his  audience  in  that  light.  From  the 
deck  of  the  steamboat  he  addressed  the  town,  and 
7* 


154  BADDECK. 


then,  to  the  reUef  of  the  passengers,  he  decided  to 
go  ashore.  When  the  boat  drew  away  on  her  voy- 
age we  left  him  swaying  perilously  near  the  edge 
of  the  wharf,  good-naturedly  resenting  the  grasp 
of  his  coat-tail  by  a  friend,  addressing  us  upon  the 
topics  of  the  day,  and  wishing  us  prosperity  and 
the  Fourth  of  July.  His  was  the  only  effort  in  the 
nature  of  a  public  lecture  that  we  heard  in  the 
Provinces,  and  we  could  not  judge  of  his  ability 
without  hearing  a  "  course." 

Perhaps  it  needed  this  slight  disturbance,  and 
the  contrast  of  this  hazy  mind  with  the  serene 
clarity  of  the  day,  to  put  us  into  the  most  com- 
plete enjoyment  of  our  voyage.  Certainly,  as  we 
glided  out  upon  the  summer  waters  and  began  to 
get  the  graceful  outlines  of  the  widening  shores,  it 
seemed  as  if  we  had  taken  passage  to  the  Fortu- 
nate Islands. 


"  One  town,  one  country,  is  very  like  another ;  .  .  .  .  there 
are  indeed  minute  discriminations  both  of  places  and  manners, 
which,  perhaps,  are  not  wanting  of  curiosity,  but  which  a 
traveller  seldom  stays  long  enough  to  investigate  and  com- 
pare."—  Dr.  Johnson. 

HERE  was  no  prospect  of  any  excitement 
or  of  any  adventure  on  the  steamboat 
from  Baddeck  to  West  Bay,  the  south- 
ern point  of  the  Bras  d'Or.  Judging  from  the 
appearance  of  the  boat,  the  dinner  might  have 
been  an  experiment,  but  we  ran  no  risks.  It  was 
enough  to  sit  on  deck  forward  of  the  wheel-house, 
and  absorb,  by  all  the  senses,  the  delicious  day. 
With  such  weather  perpetual  and  such  scenery 
always  present,  sin  in  this  world  would  soon  be- 
come an  impossibility.  Even  towards  the  passen- 
gers  from   Sydney,  with  their  imitation  English 


156  BADDECK, 


ways  and  little  insular  gossip,  one  could  have  only 
charity  and  the  most  kindly  feeling. 

The  most  electric  American,  heir  of  all  the  ner- 
vous diseases  of  all  the  ages,  could  not  but  find 
peace  in  this  scene  of  tranquil  beauty,  and  sail  on 
into  a  great  and  deepening  contentment.  Would 
the  voyage  could  last  for  an  age,  with  the  same 
sparkling  but  tranquil  sea,  and  the  same  environ- 
ment of  hills,  near  and  remote  !  The  hills  ap- 
proached and  fell  away  in  lines  of  undulating  grace, 
draped  with  a  tender  color  which  helped  to  carry 
the  imagination  beyond  the  earth.  At  this  point 
the  narrative  needs  to  flow  into  verse,  but  my 
comrade  did  not  feel  like  another  attempt  at 
poetry  so  soon  after  that  on  the  Gut  of  Canso.  A 
man  cannot  always  be  keyed  up  to  the  pitch  of 
production,  though  his  emotions  may  be  highly 
creditable  to  him.  But  poetry-making  in  these 
days  is  a  good  deal  like  the  use  of  profane  lan- 
guage, —  often  without  the  least  provocation. 

Twelve  miles  from  Baddeck  we  passed  through 
the  Barra  Strait,  or  the  Grand  Narrows,  a  pictu- 
resque feature  in  the  Bras  d'Or,  and  came  into  its 


AND    THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  157 

widest  expanse.  At  the  Narrows  is  a  small  settle- 
ment with  a  flag-staff  and  a  hotel,  and  roads 
leading  to  farm-houses  on  the  hills.  Here  is  a 
Catholic  chapel;  and  on  shore  a  fat  padre  was 
waiting  in  his  wagon  for  the  inevitable  priest  we 
always  set  ashore  at  such  a  place.  The  missionary 
we  landed  was  the  young  father  from  Arichat, 
and  in  appearance  the  pleasing  historical  Jesuit. 
Slender  is  too  corpulent  a  word  to  describe  his 
thinness,  and  his  stature  was  primeval.  Enveloped 
in  a  black  coat,  the  skirts  of  which  reached  his 
heels,  and  surmounted  by  a  black  hat  with  an 
enormous  brim,  he  had  the  form  of  an  elegant 
toadstool.  The  traveller  is  always  gi'ateful  for 
such  figures,  and  is  not  disposed  to  quarrel  with 
the  faith  which  preserves  so  much  of  the  ugly 
picturesque.  A  peaceful  farming  country  this, 
but  an  unremunerative  field,  one  would  say,  for 
the  colporteur  and  the  book-agent;  and  winter 
must  enclose  it  in  a  lonesome  seclusion. 

The  only  other  thing  of  note  the  Bras  d'Or 
offered  us  before  we  reached  West  Bay  was  the 
finest  show  of  medusae  or  jelly-fish  that  could  be 


158  BADDECK, 


produced.  At  first  there  were  dozens  of  these 
disk-shaped,  transparent  creatures,  and  then 
hundreds,  starring  the  water  like  marguerites 
sprinkled  on  a  meadow,  and  of  sizes  from  that  of 
a  teacup  to  a  dinner-plate.  We  soon  ran  into  a 
school  of  them,  a  convention,  a  herd  as  extensive 
as  the  vast  buffalo  droves  on  the  plains,  a  collec- 
tion as  thick  as  clover-blossoms  in  a  field  in  June, 
miles  of  them  apparently ;  and  at  length  the  boat 
had  to  push  its  way  through  a  mass  of  them 
which  covered  the  water  like  the  leaves  of  the 
pond-lily,  and  filled  the  deeps  far  down  with  their 
beautiful  contracting  and  expanding  forms.  I  did 
not  suppose  there  were  so  many  jelly-fishes  in  all 
the  world.  What  a  repast  they  would  have  made 
for  the  Atlantic  whale  we  did  not  see,  and  what 
inward  comfort  it  would  have  given  him  to  have 
swum  through  them  once  or  twice  with  open 
mouth !  Our  delight  in  this  wondrous  spectacle 
did  not  prevent  this  generous  wish  for  the  grati- 
fication of  the  whale.  It  is  probably  a  natural 
human  desire  to  see  big  corporations  swallow  up 
little  ones. 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  159 

At  the  West  Bay  landing,  where  there  is  noth- 
ing whatever  attractive,  we  found  a  great  concourse 
of  country  wagons  and  clamorous  drivers,  to  trans- 
port the  passengers  over  the  rough  and  uninterest- 
ing nine  miles  to  Port  Hawksbury.  Competition 
makes  the  fare  low,  but  nothing  makes  the  ride 
entertaining.  The  only  settlement  passed  through 
has  the  promising  name  of  River  Inhabitants,  but 
we  could  see  little  river  and  less  inhabitants; 
country  and  people  seem  to  belong  to  that  com- 
monplace order  out  of  which  the  traveller  can  ex- 
tract nothing  amusing,  instructive,  or  disagreeable ; 
and  it  was  a  great  relief  when  we  came  over  the 
last  hill  and  looked  down  upon  the  straggling  vil- 
lage of  Port  Hawksbury  and  the  winding  Gut  of 
Canso. 

One  cannot  but  feel  a  respect  for  this  historical 
strait,  on  account  of  the  protection  it  once  gave 
our  British  ancestors.     Smollett  makes  a  certain 

Captain  C •  tell  this  anecdote  of  George  II.  and 

his  enlightened  minister,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  : 
"  In  the  beginning  of  the  war  this  poor,  half-witted 
creature   told  me,  in  a  great  fright,  that  thirty 


160  BADDECK, 


thousand  French  had  marched  from  Acadie  to 
Cape  Breton.  *  Where  did  they  find  transports  ? ' 
said  I.  '  Transports ! '  cried  he ;  '  I  tell  you,  they 
marched  by  land.'  '  By  land  to  the  island  of  Cape 
Breton  r  'What!  is  Cape  Breton  an  island  r 
'  Certainly.'  '  Ha  !  are  you  sure  of  that  1 '  When 
I  pointed  it  out  on  the  map,  he  examined  it  ear- 
nestly with  his  spectacles  ;  then  taking  me  in  his 

arms,  '  My  dear  C !  *  cried   he,   '  you  always 

bring  us  good  news.  I  '11  go  directly  and  tell  the 
king  that  Cape  Breton  is  an  island.' " 

Port  Hawksbury  is  not  a  modern  settlement, 
and  its  public-house  is  one  of  the  irregular,  old- 
fashioned,  snuffy  taverns,  with  low  rooms,  chintz- 
covered  lounges,  and  fat-cushioned  rocking-chairs, 
the  decay  and  untidiness  of  which  are  not  offensive 
to  the  traveller.  It  has  a  low  back  porch  looking 
towards  the  water  and  over  a  mouldy  garden,  damp 
and  unseemly.  Time  was,  no  doubt,  before  the 
rush  of  travel  rubbed  off  the  bloom  of  its  ancient 
hospitality  and  set  a  vigilant  man  at  the  door  of  the 
dining-room  to  collect  pay  for  meals,  that  this  was 
an  abode  of  comfort  and  the  resort  of  merry-making 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  161 

and  frolicsome  provincials.  On  this  now  decaying 
porch  no  doubt  lovers  sat  in  the  moonlight,  and 
vowed  by  the  Gut  of  Canso  to  be  fond  of  each 
other  forever.  The  traveller  cannot  help  it  if  he 
comes  upon  the  traces  of  such  sentiment.  There 
lingered  yet  in  the  house  an  air  of  the  hospitable 
old  time ;  the  swift  willingness  of  the  waiting-maids 
at  table,  who  were  eager  that  we  should  miss  none 
of  the  home-made  dishes,  spoke  of  it ;  and  as  we 
were  not  obliged  to  stay  in  the  hotel  and  lodge  in 
its  six-by-four  bedrooms,  we  could  alFord  to  make 
a  little  romance  about  its  history. 

While  we  were  at  supper  the  steamboat  arrived 
from  Pictou.  We  hastened  on  board,  impatient 
for  progress  on  our  homeward  journey.  But  haste 
was  not  called  for.  The  steamboat  would  not  sail 
on  her  return  till  morning.  No  one  could  tell  why. 
It  was  not  on  account  of  freight  to  take  in  or  dis- 
charge; it  was  not  in  hope  of  more  passengers, 
for  they  were  all  on  board.  But  if  the  boat  had 
returned  that  night  to  Pictou,  some  of  the  pas- 
sengers might  have  left  her  and  gone  west  by  rail, 
instead   of  wasting  two  or  three   days  lounging 


162  BADDECK, 


through  Northumberland  Sound  and  idhng  in  the 
harbors  of  Prince  Edward  Island.  If  the  steam- 
boat would  leave  at  midnight  we  could  catch  the 
railway  train  at  Pictou.  Probably  the  officials  were 
aware  of  this,  and  they  preferred  to  have  our  com- 
pany to  Shediac.  We  mention  this  so  that  the 
tourist  w^ho  comes  this  way  may  learn  to  possess 
his  soul  in  patience,  and  know  that  steamboats  are 
not  run  for  his  accommodation,  but  to  give  him  re- 
pose and  to  familiarize  him  with  the  country.  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  give  the  unscientific  reader 
an  idea  of  the  slowness  of  travel  by  steamboat  in 
these  regions.  Let  him  first  fix  his  mind  on  the 
fact  that  the  earth  moves  through  space  at  a  speed 
of  more  than  sixty-six  thousand  miles  an  hour. 
This  is  a  speed  eleven  hundred  times  greater  than 
that  of  the  most  rapid  express  trains.  If  the  dis- 
tance traversed  by  a  locomotive  in  an  hour  is  rep- 
resented by  one  tenth  of  an  inch,  it  would  need 
a  line  nine  feet  long  to  indicate  the  corresponding 
advance  of  the  earth  in  the  same  time.  But  a 
tortoise,  pursuing  his  ordinary  gait  without  a 
wager,  moves  eleven  hundred  times  slower  than 


AND   TEAT  SORT  OF   THING.  163 

an  express  train.  We  have  here  a  basis  of  com- 
parison with  the  provincial  steamboats.  If  we  had 
seen  a  tortoise  start  that  night  from  Port  Hawksr 
bury  for  the  west,  we  should  have  desired  to  send 
letters  by  him. 

In  the  early  morning  we  stole  out  of  the  roman- 
tic strait,  and  by  breakfast-time  we  were  over  St. 
George's  Bay  and  round  his  cape,  and  making  for 
the  harbor  of  Pictou.  During  the  forenoon  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  an  excursion  developed 
itself  on  the  steamboat,  but  it  had  so  few  of  the 
bustling  features  of  an  American  excursion  that  I 
thought  it  might  be  a  pilgrimage.  Yet  it  doubt- 
less was  a  highly  developed  provincial  lark.  For 
a  certain  portion  of  the  passengers  had  the  unmis- 
takable excursion  air :  the  half-jocular  manner 
towards  each  other,  the  local  facetiousness  which 
is  so  offensive  to  uninterested  fellow-travellers, 
that  male  obsequiousness  about  ladies'  shawls  and 
reticules,  the  clumsy  pretence  of  gallantry  with 
each  other's  wives,  the  anxiety  about  the  company 
luggage  and  the  company  health.  It  became  pain- 
fully evident  presently  that  it  was  an  excursion, 


164  BADDECK, 


for  we  heard  singing  of  that  concerted  and  de- 
termined kind  that  depresses  the  spirits  of  all 
except  those  who  join  in  it.  The  excursion  had 
assembled  on  the  lee  guards  out  of  the  wind,  and 
was  enjoying  itself  in  an  abandon  of  serious  musi- 
cal enthusiasm.  "VVe  feared  at  first  that  there 
might  be  some  levity  in  this  performance,  and  that 
the  unrestrained  spirit  of  the  excursion  was  work- 
ing itself  off  in  social  and  convivial  songs.  But  it 
was  not  so.  The  singers  were  provided  with  hymn- 
and-tune  books,  and  what  they  sang  they  rendered 
in  long  metre  and  with  a  most  doleful  earnestness. 
It  is  agi'eeable  to  the  traveller  to  see  that  the 
provincials  disport  themselves  within  bounds,  and 
that  an  hilarious  spree  here  does  not  differ  much 
in  its  exercises  from  a  prayer-meeting  elsewhere. 
But  the  excursion  enjoyed  its  staid  dissipation 
amazingly. 

It  is  pleasant  to  sail  into  the  long  and  broad 
harbor  of  Pictou  on  a  sunny  day.  On  the  left  is 
the  Halifax  railway  terminus,  and  three  rivers 
flow  into  the  harbor  from  the  south.  On  the  right 
the  town  of  Pictou,  wuth  its  four  thousand  inhabi- 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF  THING.  165 

tants,  lies  iipou  the  side  of  the  ridge  that  runs  out 
towards  the  Sound.  The  most  conspicuous  build- 
ing in  it  as  we  approach  is  the  Roman  Catholic 
church;  advanced  to  the  edge  of  the  town  and 
occupying  the  highest  ground,  it  appears  large,  and 
its  gilt  cross  is  a  beacon  miles  away.  Its  builders 
understood  the  value  of  a  striking  situation,  a  dom- 
inant position ;  it  is  a  part  of  the  universal  policy 
of  this  church  to  secure  the  commanding  places 
for  its  houses  of  worship.  We  may  have  had  no 
prejudices  in  favor  of  the  Papal  temporality  when 
we  landed  at  Pictou,  but  this  church  was  the  only 
one  which  impressed  us,  and  the  only  one  we  took 
the  trouble  to  visit.  We  had  ample  time,  for  the 
steamboat  after  its  arduous  trip  needed  rest,  and 
remained  some  hours  in  the  harbor.  Pictou  is 
said  to  be  a  thriving  place,  and  its  streets  have  a 
cindery  appearance,  betokening  the  nearness  of 
coal  mines  and  the  presence  of  furnaces.  But  the 
town  has  rather  a  cheap  and  rusty  look.  Its 
streets  rise  one  above  another  on  the  hillside,  and, 
except  a  few  comfortable  cottages,  we  saw  no  evi- 
dences of  wealth  in  the  dwellings.     The  church, 


166  BADDECK, 


when  we  reached  it,  was  a  commonplace  brick 
structure,  with  a  raw,  unfinished  interior,  and 
weedy  and  untidj  surroundings,  so  that  our  expec- 
tation of  sitting  on  the  inviting  hill  and  enjoying 
the  view  was  not  realized ;  and  we  were  obliged  to 
descend  to  the  hot  wharf  and  wait  for  the  ferry- 
boat to  take  us  to  the  steamboat  which  lay  at  the 
railway  terminus  opposite.  It  is  the  most  unfair 
thing  in  the  world  for  the  traveller,  without  an 
object  or  any  interest  in  the  development  of  the 
country,  on  a  sleepy  day  in  August,  to  express  any 
opinion  whatever  about  such  a  town  as  Pictou. 
But  we  may  say  of  it,  without  offence,  that  it 
occupies  a  charming  situation,  and  may  have  an 
interesting  future ;  and  that  a  person  on  a  short 
acquaintance  can  leave  it  without  regret. 

By  stopping  here  we  had  the  misfortune  to  lose 
our  '*  excursion,"  a  loss  that  was  soothed  by  no 
knowledge  of  its  destination  or  hope  of  seeing  it 
again,  and  a  loss  without  a  hope  is  nearly  always 
painful.  Going  out  of  the  harbor  we  encounter 
Pictou  Island  and  Light,  and  presently  see  the 
low  coast  of  Prince  Edward  Island,  —  a  coast  in- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  167 

dented  and  agreeable  to  those  idly  sailing  along 
it,  in  weather  that  seemed  let  down  out  of  heaven, 
and  over  a  sea  that  sparkled  but  still  slept  in  a 
summer  quiet.  When  fate  puts  a  man  in  such  a 
position  and  relieves  him  of  all  responsibility, 
with  a  book  and  a  good  comrade,  and  liberty  to 
make  sarcastic  remarks  upon  his  fellow-travellers, 
or  to  doze,  or  to  look  over  the  tranquil  sea,  he 
may  be  pronounced  happy,  xind  I  believe  that 
my  companion,  except  in  the  matter  of  the  com- 
rade, was  happy.  But  I  could  not  resist  a  wor- 
rying anxiety  about  the  future  of  the  British 
Provinces,  which  not  even  the  remembrance  of 
their  hostility  to  us  during  our  mortal  strife  with 
the  Rebellion  could  render  agreeable.  For  I  could 
not  but  feel  that  the  ostentatious  and  unconceala- 
ble  prosperity  of  "  the  States  "  overshadows  this 
part  of  the  continent.  And  it  was  for  once  in 
vain  that  I  said,  "  Have  we  not  a  common  lan- 
guage and  a  common  literature,  and  no  copyright, 
and  a  common  pride  in  Shakespeare  and  Hannah 
More  and  Colonel  Newcome  and  Pepys's  Diary  1 " 
I  never  knew  this  sort  of  consolation  to  fail  before  j 


168  BADDECK, 


it  does  not  seem  to  answer  in  the  Provinces  as 
well  as  it  does  in  England. 

New  passengers  had  come  on  board  at  Pictou, 
new  and  hungry,  and  not  all  could  get  seats  for 
dinner  at  the  first  table.  Notwithstanding  the 
supposed  traditionary  advantage  of  our  birthplace, 
we  were  unable  to  despatch  this  meal  with  the 
celerity  of  our  fellow-voyagers,  and  consequently, 
while  we  lingered  over  our  tea,  we  found  ourselves 
at  the  second  table.  And  we  were  rewarded  by 
one  of  those  pleasing  sights  that  go  to  make  up 
the  entertainment  of  travel.  There  sat  down 
opposite  to  us  a  fat  man  whose  noble  proportions 
occupied  at  the  board  the  space  of  three  ordinary 
men.  His  great  face  beamed  delight  the  moment 
he  came  near  the  table.  He  had  a  low  forehead 
and  a  wide  mouth  and  small  eyes,  and  an  internal 
capacity  that  was  a  prophecy  of  famine  to  his 
fellow-men.  But  a  more  good-natured,  pleased 
animal  you  may  never  see.  Seating  himself  with 
unrepressed  joy,  he  looked  at  us,  and  a  great 
smile  of  satisfaction  came  over  his  face,  that 
plainl}'^  said,  "  Now  my  time  has  come."     Every 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  169 

part  of  his  vast  bulk  said  this.  Most  generously, 
by  his  friendly  glances,  he  made  us  partners  in 
his  pleasure.  With  a  Napoleonic  grasp  of  his 
situation,  he  reached  far  and  near,  hauling  this 
and  that  dish  of  fragments  towards  his  plate,  giv- 
ing orders  at  the  same  time,  and  throwing  into 
his  cheerful  mouth  odd  pieces  of  bread  and  pickles 
in  an  unstudied  and  preliminary  manner.  When 
he  had  secured  everything  within  his  reach,  he 
heaped  his  plate  and  began  an  attack  upon  the 
contents,  using  both  knife  and  fork  with  wonder- 
ful proficiency.  The  man's  good-humor  was  con- 
tagious, and  he  did  not  regard  our  amusement  as 
different  in  kind  from  his  enjoyment.  The  spec- 
tacle was  worth  a  journey  to  see.  Indeed,  its 
aspect  of  comicality  almost  overcame  its  gTossness, 
and  even  when  the  hero  loaded  in  faster  than  he 
could  swallow,  and  was  obliged  to  drop  his  knife 
for  an  instant  to  arrange  matters  in  his  mouth 
with  his  finger,  it  w^as  done  with  such  a  beaming 
smile  that  a  pig  would  not  take  offence  at  it. 
The  performance  was  not  the  merely  vulgar  thing 
it  seems  on  paper,  but  an  achievement  unique 
8 


170  BADDECK, 


and  perfect,  which  one  is  not  likely  to  see  more 
than  once  in  a  lifetime.  It  was  only  when  the 
man  left  the  table  that  his  face  became  serious. 
We  had  seen  him  at  his  best. 

Prince  Edward  Island,  as  we  approached  it, 
had  a  pleasing  aspect,  and  nothing  of  that  remote 
friendlessness  which  its  appearance  on  the  map 
conveys  to  one;  a  warm  and  sandy  land,  in  a 
genial  chmate,  without  fogs,  we  are  informed.  In 
the  winter  it  has  ice  communication  with  Nova 
Scotia,  from  Cape  Traverse  to  Cape  Tormentine,  — 
the  route  of  the  submarine  cable.  The  island  is 
as  flat  from  end  to  end  as  a  floor.  When  it  sur- 
rendered its  independent  government  and  joined 
the  Dominion,  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  union 
was  that  the  government  should  build  a  railway 
the  whole  length  of  it.  This  is  in  process  of 
construction,  and  the  portion  that  is  built  aff'ords 
great  satisfaction  to  the  islanders,  a  railway  being 
one  of  the  necessary  adjuncts  of  civilization ;  but 
that  there  was  great  need  of  it,  or  that  it  would 
pay,  we  were  unable  to  learn. 

We   sailed  through   Hillsborough   Bay  and  a 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  171 

narrow  strait  to  Charlottetown,  the  capital,  which 
lies  ou  a  sandy  spit  of  land  between  two  rivers. 
Our  leisurely  steamboat  tied  up  here  in  the  after- 
noon and  spent  the  night,  giving  the  passengers 
an  opportunity  to  make  thorough  acquaintance 
with  the  town.  It  has  the  appearance  of  a  place 
from  which  something  has  departed;  a  wooden 
town,  with  wide  and  vacant  streets,  and  the  air 
of  waiting  for  something.  Almost  melancholy  is 
the  aspect  of  its  freestone  colonial  building,  where 
once  the  colonial  legislature  held  its  momentous 
sessions,  and  the  colonial  governor  shed  the  de- 
lightful aroma  of  royalty.  The  mansion  of  the 
governor  —  now  vacant  of  pomp,  because  that 
official  does  not  exist  —  is  a  little  withdrawn  from 
the  town,  secluded  among  trees  by  the  water-side. 
It  is  dignified  with  a  winding  approach,  but  is 
itself  only  a  cheap  and  decaying  house.  On  our 
way  to  it  we  passed  the  drill-shed  of  the  local 
cavalry,  which  we  mistook  for  a  skating-rink,  and 
thereby  excited  the  contempt  of  an  old  lady  of 
whom  we  inquired.  Tasteful  residences  we  did 
not  find,  nor  that  attention  to  flowers  and  gardens 


172  BADDECK, 


which  the  mild  climate  would  suggest.  Indeed, 
we  should  describe  Charlottetown  as  a  place  where 
the  hollyhock  in  the  door-yard  is  considered  an 
ornament.  A  conspicuous  building  is  a  large 
market-house  shingled  all  over  (as  many  of  the 
public  buildings  are),  and  this  and  other  cheap 
public  edifices  stand  in  the  midst  of  a  large 
square,  which  is  surrounded  by  shabby  shops  for 
the  most  part.  The  town  is  laid  out  on  a  gen- 
erous scale,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  could 
not  have  seen  it  when  it  enjoyed  the  glory  of  a 
governor  and  court  and  ministers  of  state,  and  all 
the  paraphernalia  of  a  royal  parliament.  That 
the  productive  island,  with  its  system  of  free 
schools,  is  about  to  enter  upon  a  prosperous 
career,  and  that  Charlottetown  is  soon  to  become 
a  place  of  great  activity,  no  one  who  converses 
with  the  natives  can  doubt ;  and  I  think  that  even 
now  no  traveller  will  regret  spending  an  hour  or 
two  there;  but  it  is  necessary  to  say  that  the 
rosy  inducements  to  tourists  to  spend  the  summer 
there  exist  only  in  the  guide-books. 

We  congratulated  ourselves  that  we  should  at 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  173 

least  have  a  night  of  dehghtful  sleep  on  the  steam- 
boat in  the  quiet  of  this  secluded  harbor.  But  it 
was  wisely  ordered  otherwise,  to  the  end  that  we 
should  improve  our  time  by  an  interesting  study 
of  human  nature.  Towards  midnight,  when  the 
occupants  of  all  the  state-rooms  were  supposed  to 
be  in  profound  slumber,  there  was  an  invasion  of 
the  small  cabin  by  a  large  and  loquacious  family, 
who  had  been  making  an  excursion  on  the  island 
railway.  This  family  might  remind  an  antiquated 
novel-reader  of  the  delightful  Brangtons  in  Eve- 
lina; they  had  all  the  vivacity  of  the  pleasant 
cousins  of  the  heroine  of  that  story,  and  the  same 
generosity  towards  the  public  in  regard  to  their 
family  affairs.  Before  they  had  been  in  the  cabin 
an  hour,  we  felt  as  if  we  knew  every  one  of  them. 
There  was  a  great  squabble  as  to  where  and  how 
they  should  sleep ;  and  when  this  was  over,  the 
revelations  of  the  nature  of  their  beds  and  their 
peculiar  habits  of  sleep  continued  to  pierce  the 
thin  deal  partitions  of  the  adjoining  state-rooms. 
When  all  the  possible  trivialities  of  vacant  minds 
seemed  to  have  been  exhausted,  there  followed  a 


174  BADDECK, 


half-hour  of  "Good  night,  pa;  good  night,  ma"; 
*-  Good  night,  pet " ;  and  "  Are  you  asleep,  ma  ? " 
*'  No."  "  Are  you  asleep,  pa  1 "  "  No ;  go  to 
sleep,  pet."  "  I  'm  going.  Good  night,  pa ;  good 
night,  ma."  "Good  night,  pet."  "This  bed  is 
too  short."  "Why  don't  you  take  the  other?" 
"  I  'm  all  fixed  now."  "  Well,  go  to  sleep ;  good 
night."  "  Good  night,  ma ;  good  night,  pa,"  — 
no  answer.  "  Good  night,  />«."  "  Good  night, 
pet."  "  Ma,  are  you  asleep  1 "  "  'Most."  "  This 
bed  is  all  lumps;  I  wish  I'd  gone  down  stairs.'' 
"Well,  pa  will  get  up."  "Pa,  are  you  asleep?" 
"  Yes."  "  It  's  better  now ;  good  night,  pa." 
"  Good  night,  pet."  "  Good  night,  ma."  "  Good 
night,  pet."  And  so  on  in  an  exasperating  repe- 
tition, until  every  passenger  on  the  boat  must 
have  been  thoroughly  informed  of  the  manner  in 
which  this  interesting  family  habitually  settled 
itself  to  repose. 

Half  an  hour  passes  with  only  a  languid  ex- 
change of  family  feeling,  and  then  :  "  Pa  ? " 
"  Well,  pet."  "  Don't  call  us  in  the  morning ; 
we  don't  w^ant  any  breakfast ;  we  want  to  sleep." 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  175 

**  I  won't."  "  Good  uiglit,  pa ;  good  night,  ma. 
Ma  1 "  "  What  is  it,  dear  1 "  "  Good  night,  ma." 
"  Good  night,  pet."  Alas  for  youthful  expecta- 
tions !  Pet  shared  her  state-room  with  a  young 
companion,  and  the  two  were  carrying  on  a  pri- 
vate dialogue  during  this  public  performance. 
Did  these  young  ladies,  after  keeping  all  the  pas- 
sengers of  the  boat  awake  till  near  the  summer 
dawn,  imagine  that  it  was  in  the  power  of  pa  and 
ma  to  insure  them  the  coveted  forenoon  slumber, 
or  even  the  morning  snooze  1  The  travellers, 
tossing  in  their  state-room  under  this  domestic 
infliction,  anticipated  the  morning  with  grim  sat- 
isfaction ;  for  they  had  a  presentiment  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  them  to  arise  and  make 
their  toilet  without  waking  up  every  one  in  their 
part  of  the  boat,  and  aggravating  them  to  such  an 
extent  that  they  would  stay  awake.  And  so  it 
turned  out.  The  family  grumbling  at  the  unex- 
pected disturbance  was  sweeter  to  the  travellers 
than  all  the  exchange  of  family  affection  during 
the  night. 

No  one,  indeed,  ought  to  sleep  beyond  break- 


176  BADDECK, 


fast-time  while  sailing  along  the  southern  coast  of 
Prince  Edward  Island.  It  was  a  sparkling  morn- 
ing. When  we  went  on  deck  we  were  abreast 
Cape  Traverse ;  the  faint  outline  of  Nova  Scotia 
was  marked  on  the  horizon,  and  New  Brunswick 
thrust  out  Cape  Tormentine  to  greet  us.  On  the 
still,  sunny  coasts  and  the  placid  sea,  and  in  the 
serene,  smiling  sky,  there  was  no  sign  of  the  com- 
ing tempest  which  was  then  raging  from  Hatteras 
to  Cape  Cod ;  nor  could  one  imagine  that  this 
peaceful  scene  would,  a  few  days  later,  be  swept 
by  a  fearful  tornado,  which  should  raze  to  the 
ground  trees  and  dwelling-houses,  and  strew  all 
these  now  inviting  shores  with  wrecked  ships  and 
drowning  sailors,  —  a  storm  which  has  passed  into 
literature  in  "  The  Lord's-Day  Gale  "  of  Mr.  Sted- 
man. 

Through  this  delicious  weather  why  should  the 
steamboat  hasten,  in  order  to  discharge  its  passen- 
gers into  the  sweeping  unrest  of  continental  travel  1 
Our  eagerness  to  get  on,  indeed,  almost  melted 
away,  and  we  were  scarcely  impatient  at  all  when 
the  boat  lounged  into  Halifax  Bay,  past  Saluta- 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  177 

tion  Point,  and  stopped  at  Summerside.  This 
little  seaport  is  intended  to  be  attractive,  and  it 
would  give  these  travellers  great  pleasure  to 
describe  it,  if  they  could  at  all  remember  how  it 
looks.  But  it  is  a  place  that,  like  some  faces, 
makes  no  sort  of  impression  on  the  memory.  We 
went  ashore  there,  and  tried  to  take  an  interest 
in  the  ship-building,  and  in  the  little  oysters 
which  the  harbor  yields;  but  whether  we  did 
take  an  interest  or  not  has  passed  out  of  memory. 
A  small,  unpicturesque,  wooden  town,  in  the  lan- 
guor of  a  provincial  summer ;  why  should  we  pre- 
tend an  interest  in  it  which  we  did  not  feel?  It 
did  not  disturb  our  reposeful  frame  of  mind,  nor 
much  interfere  with  our  enjoyment  of  the  day. 

On  the  forward  deck,  when  we  were  under  way 
again,  amid  a  group  reading  and  nodding  in  the 
sunshine,  we  found  a  pretty  girl  with  a  companion 
and  a  gentleman,  whom  we  knew  by  intuition  as 
the  "  pa  "  of  the  pretty  girl  and  of  our  night  of 
anguish.  The  pa  might  have  been  a  clergyman 
in  a  small  way,  or  the  proprietor  of  a  female 
boarding-school ;    at   any  rate,   an  excellent  and 


178  BADDECK, 


improving  person  to  travel  with,  whose  willing- 
ness to  impart  information  made  even  the  travel- 
lers long  for  a  pa.  It  was  no  part  of  his  plan  of 
this  family  summer  excursion,  upon  which  he  had 
come  against  his  wish,  to  have  any  hour  of  it 
wasted  in  idleness.  He  held  an  open  volume  in 
his  hand,  and  was  questioning  his  daughter  on 
its  contents.  He  spoke  in  a  loud  voice,  and  with- 
out heeding  the  timidity  of  the  young  lady,  who 
shrank  from  this  public  examination,  and  begged 
her  father  not  to  continue  it.  The  parent  was, 
however,  either  proud  of  his  daughter's  acquire- 
ments, or  he  thought  it  a  good  opportunity  to 
shame  her  out  of  her  ignorance.  Doubtless,  we 
said,  he  is  instructing  her  upon  the  geography  of 
the  region  we  are  passing  through,  its  early  set- 
tlement, the  romantic  incidents  of  its  history, 
when  French  and  English  fought  over  it,  and  so  is 
making  this  a  tour  of  profit  as  well  as  pleasure. 
But  the  excellent  and  pottering  father  proved  to 
be  no  disciple  of  the  new  education.  Greece  was 
his  theme,  and  he  got  his  questions,  and  his 
answers  too,  from  the  ancient  school  history  in 
his  hand.     The  lesson  w^ent  on  :  — 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  179 

"  Who  was  Alcibiades  1 " 

"A  Greek." 

"  Yes.     When  did  he  flourish  % " 

"  I  can't  think." 

"  Can't  think  %    What  was  he  noted  forr* 

"  I  don't  remember." 

**  Don't  remember  %  I  don't  believe  you  stud- 
ied this." 

"Yes,  I  did." 

"Well,  take  it  now,  and  study  it  hard,  and 
then  I'll  hear  you  again." 

The  young  girl,  who  is  put  to  shame  by  this 
open  persecution,  begins  to  study,  while  the  peev- 
ish and  small  tyrant,  her  pa,  is  nagging  her  with 
such  soothing  remarks  as,  "  I  thought  you  'd  have 
more  respect  for  your  pride " ;  "  Why  don't  you 
try  to  come  up  to  the  expectations  of  your  teach- 
er *? "  By  and  by  the  student  thinks  she  has  "  got 
it,"  and  the  public  exposition  begins  again.  The 
date  at  which  Alcibiades  "  flourished "  was  ascer- 
tained, but  what  he  was  "noted  for"  got  hope- 
lessly mixed  with  what  Themistocles  was  '*  noted 
for."     The  momentary  impression  that  the  battle 


180  BADDECK, 


of  Marathon  was  fought  by  Salamis  was  soon  dis- 
sipated, and  the  questions  continued. 

"  What  did  Pericles  do  to  the  Greeks  % " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  Elevated  'em,  did  n't  he  %  Did  n't  he  elevate 
'emr' 

*'  Yes,  sir." 

".  Always  remember  that ;  you  want  to  fix  your 
mind  on  leading  things.  Remember  that  Pericles 
elevated  the  Greeks.     Who  was  Pericles "? " 

"He  was  a  —  " 

"  Was  he  a  philosopher  1 " 

«  Yes,  sir." 

"  No,  he  was  n't.  Socrates  was  a  philosopher. 
When  did  he  flourish  % "     And  so  on,  and  so  on. 

O  ray  charming  young  countrywomen,  let  us 
never  forget  that  Pericles  elevated  the  Greeks; 
and  that  he  did  it  by  cultivating  the  national 
genius,  the  national  spirit,  by  stimulating  art  and 
oratory  and  the  pursuit  of  learning,  and  infusing 
into  all  society  a  higher  intellectual  and  social 
life  !  Pa  was  this  day  sailing  through  seas  and  by 
shores  that  had  witnessed  some  of  the  most  stir- 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  181 

ring  and  romantic  events  in  the  early  history  of 
our  continent.  He  might  have  had  the  eager 
attention  of  his  bright  daughter  if  he  had  unfolded 
these  things  to  her  in  the  midst  of  this  most 
living  landscape,  and  given  her  an  '-'object  lesson  " 
that  she  would  not  have  forgotten  all  her  days, 
instead  of  this  pottering  over  names  and  dates 
that  were  as  dry  and  meaningless  to  him  as  they 
were  uninteresting  to  his  daughter.  At  least,  0 
Pa,  Educator  of  Youth,  if  you  are  insensible  to 
the  beauty  of  these  summer  isles  and  indifferent 
to  their  history,  and  your  soul  is  wedded  to 
ancient  learning,  why  do  you  not  teach  your 
family  to  go  to  sleep  when  they  go  to  bed,  as 
the  classic  Greeks  used  to] 

Before  the  travellers  reached  Shediac,  they  had 
leisure  to  ruminate  upon  the  education  of  Ameri- 
can girls  in  the  schools  set  apart  for  them,  and  to 
conjecture  how  much  they  are  taught  of  the  geog- 
raphy and  history  of  America,  or  of  its  social  and 
literary  growth ;  and  whether,  when  they  travel  on 
a  summer  tour  like  this,  these  coasts  have  any 
historical  light  upon  them,  or  gain  any  interest 


182  BADDECK, 


from  the  daring  and  chivalric  adventurers  who 
played  their  parts  here  so  long  ago.  We  did  not 
hear  pa  ask  when  Madame  de  la  Tour  *'  flourished," 
though  "  flourish  "  that  determined  woman  did,  in 
Boston  as  well  as  in  the  French  provinces.  In 
the  present  woman  revival  may  we  not  hope  that 
the  heroic  women  of  our  colonial  history  will  have 
the  prominence  that  is  their  right,  and  that 
woman's  achievements  will  assume  their  proper 
place  in  affairs?  When  woman  write  history,  some 
of  our  popular  men  heroes  will,  we  trust,  be  made 
to  acknowledge  the  female  sources  of  their  wis- 
dom and  their  courage.  But  at  present  women 
do  not  much  affect  history,  and  they  are  more  in- 
different to  the  careers  of  the  noted  of  their  own 
sex  than  men  are. 

We  expected  to  approach  Shediac  with  a  great 
deal  of  interest.  It  had  been,  when  we  started, 
one  of  the  most  prominent  points  in  our  projected 
tour.  It  was  the  pivot  upon  which,  so  to  speak, 
we  expected  to  swing  around  the  Provinces. 
Upon  the  map  it  was  so  attractive,  that  we  once 
resolved  to  go  no   farther   than  there.     It   one© 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  183 

seemed  to  us  that,  if  we  ever  reached  it,  we  should 
be  contented  to  abide  there,  in  a  place  so  remote, 
in  a  port  so  picturesque  and  foreign.  But  return- 
ing from  the  real  east,  our  late  interest  in  Shediao 
seemed  unaccountable  to  us.  Firmly  resolved  as 
I  was  to  note  our  entrance  into  the  harbor,  I  could 
not  keep  the  place  in  mind ;  and  while  we  were  in 
our  state-room  and  before  we  knew  it,  the  steam- 
boat lay  at  the  wharf.  Shediac  appeared  to  be 
nothing  but  a  wharf  with  a  railway  train  on  it, 
and  a  few  shanty  buildings,  a  part  of  them  devoted 
to  the  sale  of  whiskey  and  to  cheap  lodgings. 
This  landing,  however,  is  called  Point  du  Chene, 
and  the  village  of  Shediac  is  two  or  three  miles 
distant  from  it ;  we  had  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  it 
from  the  car  windows,  and  saw  nothing  in  its  situ- 
ation to  hinder  its  growth.  The  country  about  it 
is  perfectly  level,  and  stripped  of  its  forests.  At 
Painsec  Junction  we  waited  for  the  train  from  Hali- 
fax, and  immediately  found  ourselves  in  the  whirl 
of  intercolonial  travel.  Why  people  should  travel 
here,  or  why  they  should  be  excited  about  it,  we 
could  not  see ;  we  could  not  overcome  a  feeling  of 


184  BADDECK, 


the  unreality  of  the  whole  thing;  but  yet  we 
humbly  knew  that  we  had  no  right  to  be  otherwise 
than  awed  by  the  extraordinary  intercolonial  rail- 
way enterprise  and  by  the  new  life  which  it  is  in- 
fusing into  the  Provinces.  We  are  free  to  say, 
however,  that  nothing  can  be  less  interesting  than 
the  line  of  this  road  until  it  strikes  the  Kennebeck- 
asis  River,  when  the  traveller  will  be  called  upon 
to  admire  the  Sussex  Valley  and  a  very  fair  farm- 
ing region,  which  he  would  like  to  praise  if  it 
were  not  for  exciting  the  jealousy  of  the  "  Garden 
of  Nova  Scotia."  The  whole  land  is  in  fact  a 
garden,  but  differing  somewhat  from  the  Isle  of 
Wight. 

In  all  travel,  however,  people  are  more  interest- 
ing than  land,  and  so  it  was  at  this  time.  As 
twilight  shut  down  upon  the  valley  of  the  Kenne- 
beckasis,  we  heard  the  strident  voice  of  pa  going 
on  with  the  Grecian  catechism.  Pa  was  unmoved 
by  the  beauties  of  Sussex  or  by  the  colors  of  the 
sunset,  which  for  the  moment  made  picturesque 
the  scraggy  evergreens  on  the  horizon.  His  eyes 
were   with   his   heart,  and  that   was   in   Sparta. 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  185 

Above  the  roar  of  the  car-wheels  we  heard  his  nag- 
ging inquiries. 

"  What  did  Lycurgus  do  then?" 

Answer  not  audible. 

*'  No.  He  made  laws.  Who  did  he  make  laws 
for?" 

"  For  the  Greeks." 

"  He  made  laws  for  the  Lacedemonians.  Who 
was  another  great  lawgiver  1 " 

"  It  was  —  it  was  —  Pericles." 

"  No,  it  was  n't.  It  was  Solon.  Who  was 
Solon  r' 

"  Solon  was  one  of  the  wise  men  of  Greece." 

"  That 's  right.     When  did  he  flourish  1 " 

When  the  train  stops  at  a  station  the  classics 
continue,  and  the  studious  group  attracts  the 
attention  of  the  passengers.  Pa  is  well  pleased, 
but  not  so  the  young  lady,  who  beseechingly 
says,  — 

"  Pa,  everbyody  can  hear  us." 

"  You  would  n't  care  how  much  they  heard,  if 
you  knew  it,"  replies  this  accomplished  devotee 
of  learnmg. 


186  BADDECK, 


In  another  lull  of  the  car-wheels  we  find  that 
pa  has  skipped  over  to  Marathon ;  and  this  time 
it  is  the  daughter  who  is  asking  a  question. 

"  Pa,  what  is  a  phalanx  1 " 

"  Well,  a  phalanx  —  it  's  a  —  it 's  difi&cult  to  de- 
fine a  phalanx.  It 's  a  stretch  of  men  in  one  line,  — 
a  stretch  of  anything  in  a  line.  When  did  Alex- 
ander flourish  1 " 

This  domestic  tyrant  had  this  in  common  with 
the  rest  of  us,  that  he  was  much  better  at  asking 
questions  than  at  answering  them.  It  certainly 
was  not  our  fault  that  we  were  listeners  to  his 
instructive  struggles  with  ancient  history,  nor 
that  we  heard  his  petulant  complaining  to  his 
cowed  family,  whom  he  accused  of  dragging  him 
away  on  this  summer  trip.  We  are  only  grateful 
to  him,  for  a  more  entertaining  person  the  travel- 
ler does  not  often  see.  It  was  with  regret  that 
we  lost  sight  of  him  at  St.  John. 

Night  has  settled  upon  New  Brunswick  and 
upon  ancient  Greece  before  we  reach  the  Kenne- 
beckasis  Bay,  and  we  only  see  from  the  car  win- 
dows dimly  a  pleasant  and  fertile  country,  and  the 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF  THING.  187 

peaceful  homes  of  thrifty  people.  While  we  are 
running  along  the  valley  and  coming  under  the 
shadow  of  the  hill  whereon  St.  John  sits,  with  a 
regal  outlook  upon  a  most  variegated  coast  and 
upon  the  rising  and  falling  of  the  great  tides  of 
Fundy,  we  feel  a  twinge  of  conscience  at  the 
injustice  the  passing  traveller  must  perforce  do 
any  land  he  hurries  over  and  does  not  study. 
Here  is  picturesque  St.  John,  with  its  couple  of 
centuries  of  history  and  tradition,  its  commerce, 
its  enterprise  felt  all  along  the  coast  and  through 
the  settlements  of  the  territory  to  the  northeast, 
with  its  no  doubt  charming  society  and  solid  Eng- 
lish culture ;  and  the  summer  tourist,  in  an  idle 
mood  regarding  it  for  a  day,  says  it  is  naught ! 
Behold  what  "travels"  amount  to!  Are  they 
not  for  the  most  part  the  records  of  the  misappre- 
hensions of  the  misinformed]  Let  us  congratu- 
late ourselves  that  in  this  flight  through  the 
Provinces  we  have  not  attempted  to  do  any  jus- 
tice to  them,  geologically,  economically,  or  histori- 
cally, only  trying  to  catch  some  of  the  salient 
points  of  the  panorama  as  it  unrolled  itsel£     Will 


188  BADDECK, 


Halifax  rise  up  in  judgment  against  us  ?  We 
look  back  upon  it  with  softened  memory,  and 
already  see  it  again  in  the  light  of  historj^  It 
stands,  indeed,  overlooking  a  gate  of  the  ocean,  in 
a  beautiful  morning  light ;  and  we  can  hear  now 
the  repetition  of  that  profane  phrase,  used  for  the 
misdirection  of  wayward  mortals,  —  "  Go  to  Hal- 
ifax !  " —  without  a  shudder. 

We  confess  to  some  regret  that  our  journey  is 
so  near  its  end.  Perhaps  it  is  the  sentimental 
regret  with  which  one  always  leaves  the  east,  for 
we  have  been  a  thousand  miles  nearer  Ireland 
than  Boston  is.  Collecting  in  the  mind  the  de- 
tached pictures  given  to  our  eyes  in  all  these  bril- 
liant and  inspiring  days,  we  realize  afresh  the 
variety,  the  extent,  the  richness  of  these  north- 
eastern lands  which  the  Gulf  Stream  pets  and  tem- 
pers. If  it  were  not  for  attracting  speculators, 
we  should  delight  to  speak  of  the  beds  of  coal,  the 
quarries  of  marble,  the  mines  of  gold.  Look  on 
the  map  and  follow  the  shores  of  these  peninsulas 
and  islands,  the  bays,  the  penetrating  arms  of  the 
sea,  the  harbors  filled  with  islands,  the  protected 


AND   THAT  SORT   OF   THING.  189 

straits  and  sounds.  All  this  is  favorable  to  the 
highest  commercial  activity  and  enterprise.  Greece 
itself  and  its  islands  are  not  more  indented  and 
inviting.  Fish  swarm  about  the  shores  and  in  all 
the  streams.  There  are,  I  have  no  doubt,  great 
forests  which  we  did  not  see  from  the  car  win- 
dows, the  inhabitants  of  which  do  not  show  them- 
selves to  the  travellers  at  the  railway-stations. 
In  the  dining-room  of  a  friend,  who  goes  away 
every  autumn  into  the  wilds  of  Nova  Scotia  at 
the  season  when  the  snow  falls,  hang  trophies  — 
enormous  branching  antlers  of  the  caribou,  and 
heads  of  the  mighty  moose  —  which  I  am  assured 
came  from  there ;  and  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  the  noble  creatures  who  once  carried  these 
superb  horns  were  murdered  by  my  friend  at  long 
range.  Many  people  have  an  insatiate  longing  to 
kill,  once  in  their  life,  a  moose,  and  would  travel 
far  and  endure  great  hardships  to  gratify  this 
ambition.  In  the  present  state  of  the  world  it  is 
more  difficult  to  do  it  than  it  is  to  be  written 
down  as  one  who  loves  his  fellow-men. 

We  received  everywhere  in  the  Provinces  cour- 


190  BADDECK, 


tesy  and  kindness,  which  were  not  based  upon 
any  expectation  that  we  would  invest  in  mines  or 
railwaj^s,  for  the  people  are  honest,  kindly,  and 
hearty  by  nature.  What  they  will  become  when 
the  railways  are  completed  that  are  to  bind  St. 
John  to  Quebec,  and  make  Nova  Scotia,  Cape 
Breton,  and  Newfoundland  only  stepping-stones 
to  Europe,  we  cannot  say.  Probably  they  will 
become  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  furnish 
no  material  for  the  kindly  persiflage  of  the  trav- 
eller. 

Regretting  that  we  could  see  no  more  of  St. 
John,  that  we  could  scarcely  see  our  way  through 
its  dimly  lighted  streets,  we  found  the  ferry  to 
Carleton,  and  a  sleeping-car  for  Bangor.  It  was 
in  the  heart  of  the  negro  porter  to  cause  us  alarm 
by  the  intelligence  that  the  customs  officer  would 
search  our  baggage  during  the  night.  A  search  is 
a  blow  to  one's  self-respect,  especially  if  one  has 
anything  dutiable.  But  as  the  porter  might  be 
an  agent  of  our  government  in  disguise,  we  pre- 
served an  appearance  of  philosophical  indifference 
in  his  presence.     It  takes  a  sharp  observer  to  tell 


AND   THAT  SORT  OF   THING.  191 

innocence  from  assurance.  During  the  night, 
awaking,  I  saw  a  great  light.  A  man,  crawling 
along  the  aisle  of  the  car,  and  poking  under  the 
seats,  had  found  my  travelling-bag  and  was  "going 
through  "  it. 

I  felt  a  thrill  of  pride  as  I  recognized  in  this 
crouching  figure  an  officer  of  our  government,  and 
knew  that  I  was  in  my  native  land. 


THE    END. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamtjed  heJow 


3  1158  01110  1812 


i 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


B     000  004  859     5 


